In Search of Gravestones Old and Curious Part 1

In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious.

by W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent.

PREFACE.

I am a Gravestone Rambler, and I beg you to bear me company.

This Book is not a Sermon. It is a lure to decoy other Ramblers, and the bait is something to ramble for. It also provides a fresh object for study.

Old-lore is an evergreen tree with many branches. This is a young shoot. It is part of an old theme, but is itself new.

Books about Tombs there are many, and volumes of Epitaphs by the hundred. But of the Common Gravestones--the quaint and curious, often grotesque, headstones of the churchyard--there is no record.

These gravestones belong to the past, and are hastening to decay. In one or two centuries none will survive unless they be in Museums.

To preserve the counterfeit presentment of some which remain seems a duty.

Many may share the quest, but no one has yet come out to start. Let your servant shew the way.

I begin my book as I began my Rambles, and pursue as I have pursued.

WILLIAM THOMAS VINCENT.

CHAPTER I.

OLD GRAVESTONES.

I was sauntering about the churchyard at Newhaven in Suss.e.x, reading the inscriptions on the tombs, when my eyes fell upon a headstone somewhat elaborately carved. Although aged, it was in good preservation, and without much trouble I succeeded in deciphering all the details and sketching the subject in my note-book. It is represented in Fig. 1.

FIG. 1--AT NEWHAVEN, SUSs.e.x.

The inscription below the design reads as follows:

"Here lyeth the remains of Andrew Brown, who departed this life the 14th day of January 1768, aged 66 years. Also of Mary his wife, who departed this life the 3d day of July 1802, aged 88 years."

This was the first time I had been struck by an allegorical gravestone of a p.r.o.nounced character.

The subject scarcely needs to be interpreted, being obviously intended to ill.u.s.trate the well-known pa.s.sage in the Burial Service: "For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised ... then shall be brought to pa.s.s the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in Victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?"

The reference in another ritual to the Lord of Life trampling the King of Terrors beneath his feet seems also to be indicated, and it will be noticed that the artist has employed a rather emphatic smile to pourtray triumph.

It was but natural to suppose that this work was the production of some local genius of the period, and I searched for other evidences of his skill. Not far away I found the next design, very nearly of the same date.

FIG. 2.--AT NEWHAVEN, SUSs.e.x.

The words below were:

"To the memory of Thomas, the son of Thomas and Ann Alderton, who departed this life the 10th day of April 1767, in the 13th year of his age."

The same artist almost of a certainty produced both of these figurative tombstones. The handicraft is similar, the idea in each is equally daring and grotesque, and the phraseology of the inscriptions is nearly identical. I thought both conceptions original and native to the place, but I do not think so now. In point of taste, the first, which is really second in order of date, is perhaps less questionable than the other. The hope of a joyful resurrection, however rudely displayed, may bring comfort to wounded hearts; but it is difficult to conceive the feelings of bereaved parents who could sanction the representation of a beloved boy, cut off in the brightest hour of life, coffined and skeletoned in the grave!

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 3. WIDCOMBE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 4. NEWHAVEN.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 5. LEWES.]

Above the coffin on Alderton's headstone is an ornament, apparently palms. It is not unusual to find such meaningless, or apparently meaningless, designs employed to fill in otherwise blank s.p.a.ces, though symbols of death, eternity, and the future state are in plentiful command for such purposes. Something like this same ornament may be found on a very old flat stone in the churchyard of Widcombe, near Bath. It stretches the full width of the stone, and is in high relief, which has preserved it long after the accompanying inscription has vanished. The probable date may be about 1650.

FIG. 3.--AT WIDCOMBE, NEAR BATH.

In Newhaven Churchyard, though there are but these two striking examples of the allegorical gravestone, there is one other singular exemplification of the graver's skill and ingenuity, but it is nearly a score of years later in date than the others, and probably by another mason. It represents the old and extinct bridge over the Suss.e.x Avon at Newhaven, and it honours a certain brewer of the town, whose brewery is still carried on there and is famous for its "Tipper"

ale. Allowing that it was carved by a different workman, it is only fair to suppose that it may have been suggested by its predecessors.

Its originality is beyond all question, which can very rarely be said of an old gravestone, and, as a churchyard record of a local inst.i.tution, I have never seen it equalled or approached.

FIG. 4.--AT NEWHAVEN, SUSs.e.x.

Under the design is the following inscription:

"To the Memory of Thomas Tipper, who departed this life May y'e 14th, 1785, Aged 54 Years.

"READER, with kind regard this GRAVE survey Nor heedless pa.s.s where TIPPER'S ashes lay.

Honest he was, ingenuous, blunt, and kind; And dared do, what few dare do, speak his mind.

PHILOSOPHY and History well he knew, Was versed in PHYSICK and in Surgery too.

The best old STINGO he both brewed and sold, Nor did one knavish act to get his Gold.

He played through Life a varied comic part, And knew immortal HUDIBRAS by heart.

READER, in real truth, such was the Man, Be better, wiser, laugh more if you can."

That these were all the especial eccentricities of this burial-place disappointed me, but, with my after-knowledge, may say that three such choice specimens from one enclosure is a very liberal allowance.

Suspecting that sculptors of the quality necessary for such high-cla.s.s work would be unlikely to dwell in a small and unimportant fisher-village such as Newhaven was in the middle of the eighteenth century, I went over to Lewes, the county town being only seven miles by railway. But I found nothing to shew that Lewes was the seat of so much skill, and I have since failed to discover the source in Brighton or any other adjacent town. Indeed, it may be said at once that large towns are the most unlikely of all places in which to find peculiar gravestones. At Lewes, however, I lighted on one novelty somewhat to my purpose, and, although a comparatively simple ill.u.s.tration, it is not without its merits, and I was glad to add it to my small collection. The mattock and spade are realistic of the grave; the open book proclaims the promise of the heaven beyond.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 6. PLUMSTEAD.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 7. DARTFORD.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 8. DARTFORD.]

FIG. 5.--AT LEWES.

"To Samuel Earnes, died May 6th, 1757, aged 21 years."

The coincidence of date would almost warrant a belief that this piece of imagery may have emanated from the same brain and been executed by the same hands as are accountable for the two which we have seen seven miles away, but the workmans.h.i.+p is really not in the least alike, and I have learnt almost to discard in this connection the theory of local idiosyncrasies. Even when we find, as we do find, similar, and almost identical, designs in neighbouring churchyards, or in the same churchyard, it is safer to conjecture that a meaner sculptor has copied the earlier work than that the first designer would weaken his inventive character by a replication. The following, which cannot be described as less than a distortion of a worthier model, is to be found in many places, and in such abundance as to suggest a wholesale manufacture.