Mary Crow Died 28th April 1666

Mary Crow Died 28th April 1666

St Gregory - Heckingham [Link]

© Godric Godricson

Poverty

The idea of poverty was frightening enough in a time without social security althugh it must have been all the more repellent if a person had an idea of being buried in the workhouse as well as ending life there. I know that people did not have to be buried in te workshouse and I’m sure that the Authorities encouraged communities and the next of next to take responsibility for the dead. We can imagine the book keepers keeping a tally of the costs involved in provising a funeral and the gasp of excitement at the thought of saving a few pennies.

Those people who did find themselves buried in the workhouse are almost always lost to view and without markers. Yes, there will be the dry as dust paper records that exist in the UK although the physical markers of a grave are often absent. Without a marker and surrounded by the shame of poverty it is likely that many graves have never been visited or the prople occupying the grave actually mourned. Such is the way of poverty, death and burial in a land that perceives itself as being rich and vibant.

In England the workshouses that were built up and down the County have cemeteries attached to them although most people have no idea of this proximity. The cemetery is shrouded in secrecy and uncertainty. The dead are moved into that half world that is based on reality and clothed in fear.

Gressenhall, in Mid-Norfolk is an example of a place where the poor were transported and where they died over time. The Ordnance Survey maps are available and they record the presence of the cemetery. A map published in 1884 shows the cemetery to the west of the site.  The second map was published in 1906  shows the burial ground as being disused. More importantly, a map published in 1978 shows the cemetery as an orchard and we see the life cycle of the cemetery. The dead and the spaces occupied by the dead become a public space and a place for recreation. The idea of poverty becomes so difficult that the dead who died in poverty apparently have less rights to memorials than the living.

Acts 8:2

Acts 8:2


Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him.

Otto von Habsburg (1912 – 2011)

Otto von Habsburg  (1912 – 2011)

Thomas Markham - 1686

Monuments often say something about the person interred. That ‘something’ can be inherent in the stone of the monument, the location of the monument within the cemetery,the style of the monument or even what is not declared. The monument speaks at a number of levels and about a range of issues and we have to strain our ears to hear the echoes of other peoples lives



"Hidden in plain sight"

© Godric Godricson



Whilst it is always possible to go nuts about the baroque monuments of great Churches and Cathedrals, it is less so with the vernacular monuments and inscriptions of lesser places and more obscure people. The personal moments of everyday lives are not always carried into the future with size, instead they have sometimes been preserved by the small and the insignificant. We are compelled to read and re-read the signs and symbols to try and perceive something about our ancestors. In an effort to read the past we have to understand that the simple things in life are not always easy to understand.

The small messages of this monument are fascinating to me. The fragmented piece of broken stone is set as a jaunty angle into a rudimentary brick context. The rough brickwork is covered in cobwebs and hidden in full view of the world amongst the larger monuments the. The fragment is actually facing a bus stop and people waiting for a bus must see it every day without noticing or thinking of removing the stone.

I am not going to say where this monument is because I think it is regrettably easy to carry away this fragment of a  lost life and I very much want to keep it safe. The little piece of stone with a dead name rudely inscribed on it carries something of the man into the future. Although the stone is on a tomb to which it does not appear to belong; we can believe that someone in the past understood an association between the man and the tomb on which it is set and we must respect the integrity of that connection.