Martin Shepheard - Lost at sea 1865



Church of The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Erpingham

 

© Godric Godricson



War dead - Sporle




© Godric Godricson

Robert W. Anderson
Dennis Pegg
Walter Bilham
Charles Sturman
George Blowers
William Thompson
Arthur F Gaskins
Albert E Tye
Benjamin Johnson
Lewis Walker
William G Johnson
Bertie Wilson
Sydney Lane
George Worf
Maurice Palmer

War Dead - Trunch





Saint Botolph - Trunch

© Godric Godricson



Richard Call - Buried February 13th 1715



Richard Call Died 1715
All Saints Edingthorpe

© Godric Godricson



SS. Peter and Paul - Knapton

© Godric Godricson

Anne Rosa Elden - Banningham

© Godric Godricson

John Peld - Knapton

John Peld - Knapton

© Godric Godricson

Swafield Parish Church

© Godric Godricson

Rev'd Isaac Horsley

Rev'd Isaac Horsley
Died April 29th 1803

© Godric Godricson

In a vault beneath this monument are deposited

The Remains of the Rev'd Isaac Horsley

Rector of Antingham Saint Mary and Vicar of Briston

both in this County

He died  April 29th 1803 Aged 77 years

Alfo the remains of Priscilla his wife

Who died August 14th 1778, Aged 46 years

And Amey their daughter

Who died August 25th 1772, Aged 16 years

Norfolk Annals. "John Allen (23) and John Day (26), for burglary at the house of the Rev. Isaac Horsley, at North Walsham"  April 1801

Eleanor Stratten Layard 1827-1880

Eleanor  Stratten Layard   1827-1880

© Godric Godricson

Benjamin Postle - 19th August 1842

© Godric Godricson

Benjamin Postle died 19th August 1842 in the village of Swafield.

Chale




Chale Parish Church - Isle of Wight

© Godric Godricson

 

Aristocracy of the dead

Aristocracy of the dead

The tombs of the rich are often to be admired and marvelled at and then walked past as we consign their memory to temporary oblivion and that is arguably as it should be. The joy of English parish Churches is that there is much that is ordinary and 'in the vernacular'. England doesn’t have much in the cemetery that is showy and brash. That would never do! Instead, England has the sandstone stele monument or the Celtic/Cornish granite headstone that marks the seasons by referencing the moss and gentle decay whilst very slowly mouldering into the soil. On the Continent, it is very different and monuments seem to have surpassed the life of the individual they commemorate. The monument is greater than the man

Just as the venerable Sexton in “Dealings with the Dead” (1856) is clear that there is an aristocracy of the dead, it also clear that the English have maintained a fine and traditional indifference towards monuments and remained, instead, happy to provide either a low monument or no monument at all. The grass and the wildlife seem enough for us as we are gently layered into the ground to await our fate. There are clearly some grand monuments and the one at Saint Remigius at Hethersett is a great favourite of mine as it stands by the edge of the field as if about to escape into the landscape. There are great monuments in Churches and we all recognise the marble plaques about to crush us in their monumentality if they were ever to fall from their walls. They say much and also tell us nothing about the person they commemorate and, in reality, the large plaques aren’t very English at all.



Commemorated in Valetta

© Godric Godricson



Englishness is about recognising wealth, power and privilege and then doing absolutely nothing about it. Englishness is about understanding social prestige and admiring that prestige before going to the supermarket and buying beer for the hot summer we all hope for. It is that in the end we are really quite casual about titles and honours and we are also quite aware that the exteriors doesn’t always match the interior. The grand lady, wrapped in furs,  may be starving from a lack of breakfast and the great lord may have threadbare socks. Not everything is as it seems in this world or the next. The great monument may be built of shoddy materials and the lettering on the stone may be mispelt through ignorance or haste. The English understand these possibilities and naturally sneer at aristocracy whether that aristocracy is in blood, monuments or the grave. It’s all so much flim-flam at the end of the day.



Rural parish Church in North Norfolk

© Godric Godricson

 The tombs of the rich are admired that much is true although the English do not worship long at any one altar and we do not marvel over much at any one tomb. We do not over monumentalise the folly of human lives and we do not often deify the departed. It is hard to worship at a tomb when the occupant of the tomb was as mortal as us and had the same foibles and follies. So, let people have their aristocracy in the grave and have their 30 seconds of adulation as we walk past before we walk away and forget them until the next visit along with the next sunrise.

Reginald Robert Thurrell 1896 - 1916

Name: Reginald Robert Thurrell

Birth Place: 1896 Holme Hale, Norfolk

Son of Thomas Thurrell (Farmer of Town Farm) and Agnes Thurrell

Death Date: 7 Sep 1916

Burial : Heilly Station Cemetery  Somme

Rank: Private

Regiment: Household Cavalry and Cavalry of the Line (incl. Yeomanry and Imperial Camel Corps)

Battalion: Norfolk Yeomanry

Number: 2930

Theatre of War: Western European Theatre

Captain James Olifent - Died 11th April 1808




Captain James Olifent
Died 11th April 1808

© Godric Godricson

 

War dead - Knapton

War dead - Knapton

© Godric Godricson

Saint Botolph - Banningham

See Saint Botolph at a favourite site

© Godric Godricson

Saints Peter and Paul - Knapton

The Church of Saints Peter and Paul was seen on a warm day in April after the rains had passed. The grass was wet and the bird song was loud. A wonderful day in Norfolk!



© Godric Godricson



Sint-Andrieskerk - Antwerp

Saint Andrew’s Church in Antwerp is testimony to a loyalty that withstood the test of time. Although  her remote Jacobite descendant, King Henry IX , was present at the siege of Antwerp in 1746. Queen Mary Stuart of Scotland is still commemorated in this beautiful Antwerp Church. Paid for by her ladies in waiting Barbara Mowbray and Elizabeth Curle, the monument is a small but important ending to the long story and captivity of Queen Mary Stuart.

When I came across the monument I was very much captivated by the story of the ladies making their long flight from the problems of the English protestant Court and making away to the relative peace of the Spanish Netherlands as Belgium was known. The monument is a sort of cultic centre for Mary Stuart on the continent and an example of the monument being inside the Church.

© Godric Godricson

I recently said my prayers both for Queen Mary and for the ladies in waiting amidst the few tourists in the Church. May their loyal souls find repose in the Lord and may the City of Antwerp be rewarded for the haven it gave to the women.

Death is nothing at all



Death is nothing at all



Table Tomb
South Pickenham

© Godric Godricson

 

I have only slipped away into the next room

I am I and you are you
Whatever we were to each other
That we are still
Call me by my old familiar name
Speak to me in the easy way you always used
Put no difference into your tone
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow
Laugh as we always laughed
At the little jokes we always enjoyed together
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was
Let it be spoken without effort
Without the ghost of a shadow in it
Life means all that it ever meant
It is the same as it ever was
There is absolute unbroken continuity
What is death but a negligible accident?
Why should I be out of mind
Because I am out of sight?
I am waiting for you for an interval
Somewhere very near
Just around the corner
All is well.
Nothing is past; nothing is lost
One brief moment and all will be as it was before
How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!

Canon Henry Scott-Holland, 1847-1918