Malta - Graves

"Times of Malta"
2004

"Owning a grave does not mean that problems could not arise and is not a guarantee that a person will definitely be buried there. Mr Attard Kingswell explained that if a grave is not separated in sections, then a year has to pass between one burial and another. However, he said, most private graves have three compartments. The lower compartment is usually used as an ossuary - where the bones are put after the grave is cleaned - but could take up to one coffin. He explained that this compartment is sealed with stone slabs and burials usually take place in the middle compartment, which can take up to two coffins. The second level is also sealed with stone slabs so that the top level can be used if the necessary time frame to open the main compartment has not passed. He said that as long as the section was sealed off, and there were no coffins in the section being opened, a burial could take place at any time.

Ratcliffe Vault - Godshill

© Godric Godricson

© Godric Godricson

Rev. John Houghton. St. George's, Southwark

"Health of towns":
an examination of the report
and evidence of the Select Committee:
ofcMr. Mackinnon's Bill: 
.... for establishing
cemeteries around the metropolis.
(p:22 1843)

"The Rev. John Houghton, Rector of St. George's, Southwark, with reference to the vaults under his church, says......

"I never perceived any unpleasant effluvia to arise from what had been interred there; I have one of my own children buried there; had there been any thing of the kind, I certainly should not have done that. There is not the least smell."

William Henry Fortescue, 1st Earl of Clermont

© Godric Godricson

"William Henry Fortescue, 1st Earl of Clermont KP (5 August 1722 – 30 September 1806) was an Irish peer and politician.He served as High Sheriff of Louth in 1746. He became Earl of Clermont in 1777 and was appointed a Knight Founder of the Order of St Patrick on 30 March 1795.^[1 He represented Louth in the Irish House of Commons from 1745 to 1761 and subsequently Monaghan Borough until 1771. Between 1768 and 1769, he sat also as Member of Parliament for Dundalk"   Wikipedia.

Charlotte Stracey 1816 - 1884

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All Saints - Rackheath

Sir Horatio Pettus

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Mystery of a vault

Hawera & Normanby Star

"A tale of the mysterious movement of coffins in a sealed vault in the parish of Christchurch, Barbados, has long been told in the island. Fresh authentic evidence (1908) just brought to light and published this week in the West India Committee's Circular, confirms the story, and renders it mysterious in the extreme. On successive occasions when the  Chase family vault in the churchyard near Ostins Town was opened the coffins were found to be disarranged. A manuscript account by the Hon. Nathan Lucas, who witnessed the opening of the vault in 1820, has been unearthed. The document states that the vault was opened several times for the interment of bodies in the first decade of the nineteenth century. Each time the coffins were found in extraordinary positions, and after a burial in 1819.  Mr Lucas was discussing it with friends in 1820, and they decided there and then to see if the coffins had moved again. They found the heavy slabs over the entrance' untouched, and no marks of violence were anywhere visible. But in the vault itself the six coffins were once again disarranged, lying on top of each other and at certain angles. The vault was in such a position that waterr or which there were no signs could not have flooded it. There had been no earthquake to account for the mystery and no attempt to rob the corpses".

Mary and Robert Knopwood - Threxton

All Saints - Threxton

© Godric Godricson

 

Vault desecrated in Lancashire

“SICK” teenage vandals have been slammed for desecrating an historic family vault in Blackburn Cemetery. [For the full story see the Lancashire Telegraph]

Reproduced : Courtesy of The Lancashire Telegraph