Swaffham Parish Church - Styles

Isaac Stroulger
Died 26 October 1828
Martha Stroulger
Died  6 June 1871
Frances
Died 18 July 1883

Celtic Cross and dereliction

Stone, flint and brick

Saint Margaret's Church - King's Lynn
© Godric Godricson

The cross

The power of the cross
for Christians

Swaffham Parish Church - Styles

Swaffham Parish Church
© Godric Godricson

Elegant Scroll Cross
Swaffham Parish Church
© Godric Godricson

Decay and weathering
Swaffham Parish Church
© Godric Godricson

Flora

Swaffham Parish Cemetery

Henry Lee Warner 1842 -1925

"Ever Lasting"

18th Century Putti

18th Century Putti
Saint Margaret's Church - King's Lynn
© Godric Godricson

Floral - Swaffham

Death in Venice

"For many centuries funeral services in Venice have been conducted by the Scuole del Sacramento, instituted for that purpose. To one of these societies the friends of the defunct pay a certain sum, and the association engages to inter the dead, and bear all the expenses of the ceremony, the dignity of which is regulated by the priest of the parish in which the deceased lived. The rite is now most generally undertaken by the Scuola di San Rocco. The funeral train is of ten or twenty facchini, wearing tunics of white, with caps and capes of red, and bearing the society's long, gilded candlesticks of wood with lighted tapers. Priests follow them chanting prayers, and then comes the bier,—with a gilt crown lying on the coffin, if the dead be a babe, to indicate the triumph of innocence. Formerly, hired mourners attended, and a candle, weighing a pound, was given to any one who chose to carry it in the procession."

 From: VENETIAN LIFE By William Dean Howells. 1^st January 1867Project Gutenburg

Matthew 25:4

"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

Running out of burial plots.

"RESIDENTS in Market Weighton, which is fast running out of burial plots, will face the choice of being cremated to stay local – or buried miles away from the town when they die.

The town’s cemetery, on Holme Road, has less than 10 plots left in addition to the spaces that have already been bought by residents who are still alive."

For the full story

Jonas Walpole d. 22 June 1905. Erpingham

© Godric Godricson

Anima ejus, et ánimæ ómnium fidélium defunctórum, per misericórdiam Dei requiéscant in pace.

A favourite table top tomb.

"Elephant Walk stylie"
© Godric Godricson

Thomas Hawkins 1810-1889

Municipal Cemetery - Ventnor
© Godric Godricson
© Godric Godricson

Kalkara

Miss Lily A, Jackson
Died 21 October 1918
© Godric Godricson

Raymond Henery Goddard
Died 7 February 1924
© Godric Godricson

G Regester 23 February 1918

G Regester
23 February 1918

Alex Anderson - 193 Brand Street, Govan - SS Elysia

Alex Anderson
Died 24 May 1916

SS Elysia (1908-1942)

For details on the SS Elysia see this link
For  Alex on Glasgow's role of honour  see this link 
For Alex in the Kalkara site see this link

Sir Francis Freemantle (1765 – 1819)



Vice-Admiral Sir Thomas Francis Fremantle
Upper Barraka Gardens - Valetta



Gan Falaris - Kalkara

Gan Falaris Died 1916

Karl Felgate Banham Died 18 February 1919

© Godric Godricson

see also Find a Grave

Jack Bibby - Died 11 June 1917

Peter's Orchard

"It may be assumed that “Peter’s Orchard” was originally an apple orchard or an Avalon similar to the “Heaven’s Walls,” which were discovered some years ago near Royston: these “walls,” immediately contiguous to the Icknield or Acnal Way, were merely some strips of unenclosed but cultivated land which in ancient deeds from time immemorial had been called “Heaven’s Walls”. Traditional awe attached to this spot, and village children were afraid to traverse it after dark, when it was said to be frequented by supernatural beings: in 1821 some labourers digging for gravel on this haunted spot inadvertently discovered a wall enclosing a rectangular space containing numerous deposits of sepulchral urns, and it then became clear that here was one of those plots of ground environed by walls to which the Romans gave the name of ustrinum."

Title: Archaic England
       An Essay in Deciphering Prehistory from Megalithic
       Monuments, Earthworks, Customs, Coins, Place-names, and
       Faerie Superstitions
Author: Harold Bayley

Frederick Scott Keeling died 5 February 1954

Frederick Scott Keeling
died  5 February 1954
© Godric Godricson

George Howard Lambley Died 22 April 1911

© Godric Godricson

Edward Bedingfield - Kalkara

Edward Bedingfield died 10th June 1929
© Godric Godricson

Pagan shrine to Church

Section of the Dolmen Chapel of the Seven Sleepers near Plouaret

"The earliest British shrines were merely stones, or caves, or holy wells, or sacred trees, or tumuli, preferably on a hill-top or in a wood. The next type is found in the monastery of St. Bride, which was simply a circular palisade encircling a sacred fire. This was in all probability similar to the earliest known form of the Egyptian temple, a wicker hut with tall poles forming the sides of the door; in front of this extended an enclosure which had two poles with flags on either side of the entrance. In the middle of the enclosure or court was a staff bearing the emblem of the God.

Later came stone circles and megalithic monuments in various forms, whence the connection is direct to cathedrals such as Chartres, which is said to be built largely from the remains of the prehistoric megaliths which originally stood there. There are chapels in Brittany and elsewhere built over pagan monoliths; indeed no new faith can ever do more than superimpose itself upon an older one, and statements about the wise and tender treatment of the old nature worship by the Church are euphemisms for the bald fact that Christianity, finding it impracticable to wean the heathen from their obdurate beliefs, made the best of the situation by decreeing its feasts to coincide with pre-existing festivals."

Title: Archaic England
       An Essay in Deciphering Prehistory from Megalithic
       Monuments, Earthworks, Customs, Coins, Place-names, and
       Faerie Superstitions
Author: Harold Bayley

Anglican Cemetery Management

Anglican Cemetery Management
Swaffham Parish Church
© Godric Godricson

James Whitcomb Riley



James Whitcomb Riley

 (1849 - 1916)

I cannot say and I will not say

That she is dead, she is just away.

With a cheery smile and a wave of hand

She has wandered into an unknown land;

And left us dreaming how very fair

Its needs must be, since she lingers there.

And you-oh you, who the wildest yearn

From the old-time step and the glad return-

Think of her faring on, as dear

In the love of there, as the love of here

Think of her still the same way, I say;

She is not dead, she is just away.

Swaffham - War Dead

G Regester
Died 23 February 1918
© Godric Godricson

GD Buckeridge
22 August 1917
© Godric Godricson

Rev. Frederick Scott Keeling

© Godric Godricson

Pre-historic graves - Dunstable

"Among some prehistoric graves disclosed at Dunstable was one containing the relics of a woman and of a child. The authorities suggest that the latter may have been buried alive with its mother, which is a proposition that one cannot absolutely deny. But there is just as great a possibility that neither the mother nor the child came to so sinister and miserable an end. Apart from the pathetic attitude of the two bodies, the skulls are as moral and intellectual as any modern ones, and in face of the simple facts it would be quite justifiable to assume that the mother and the child were not buried alive, nor committed suicide, but died in the odour of sanctity and were reverently interred. The objects surrounding the remains are fossil echinoderms, which are even now known popularly among the unlettered as fairy loaves, and as there is still a current legend that whoso keeps at home a specimen of the fairy loaf will never lack bread,[67] one is fairly entitled to assume that these “fairy loaves” were placed in the grave in question as symbols of the spiritual food upon which our animistic-minded ancestors supposed the dead would feed. It is well known that material food was frequently deposited in tombs for a similar purpose, but in the case of this Dunstable grave there must have been a spiritual or symbolic idea behind the offering, for not even the most hopeless savage could have imagined that the soul or fairy body would have relished fossils—still less so if the material bodies had been buried alive"

Title: Archaic England
       An Essay in Deciphering Prehistory from Megalithic
       Monuments, Earthworks, Customs, Coins, Place-names, and
       Faerie Superstitions

Author: Harold Bayley

Admiral Sir Arthur Knyvet Wilson

Sir Arthur Knyvett Wilson
(1842 – 25 May 1921)
Wikipedia

© Godric Godricson

Edward Montagu CBE - Died 14 January 1941



Colonel Edward Montagu CBE
Died 14 January 1941
© Godric Godricson

Jabez Greeves Scott 16 July 1925

Jabez Greeves Scott
Died 16 July 1925

© Godric Godricson

"Swaffham Pillar"

"Swaffham Pillar"
Swaffham Parish Church
© Godric Godricson

Henry Arnold Died 4 January 1885

Henry Arnold
Died 4 January 1885
© Godric Godricson

"Swaffham Pillar" Angel

"Swaffham Pillar" Detail
© Godric Godricson

"Swaffham Pillar" Detail

"Swaffham Pillar" Detail
© Godric Godricson

Magalithic Monuments

Cemetery Dereliction /
Cemetery management @ Swaffham Parish Church

"Among the megalithic monuments of our islands the chambered barrows hold an important place. It is well known that in the neolithic period the dead in certain parts of England were buried under mounds of not circular but elongated shape. These graves are commonest in Wiltshire and the surrounding counties of Dorsetshire, Somersetshire, and Gloucestershire. A few exist in other counties. Some contain no chamber, while others contain a structure of the megalithic type. It is with these latter that we have here to deal. Chambered long barrows are most frequent in Wiltshire, though they do occur in other counties, as, for example, Buckinghamshire, where the famous Cave of Wayland the Smith is certainly the remains of a barrow of this kind. In Derbyshire and Staffordshire a type of chambered mound does occur, but it seems uncertain from the description given whether it is round or elongated".

Title: Rough Stone Monuments and Their Builders

Author: T. Eric Peet (1912)

Swaffham

The serene beauty of Swaffham
© Godric Godricson