Gravestones, Tombs & Memorials (9 page)

FIG 3.14:
Flamboyant tombs in the western half of the Cotswolds had distinctive decorated ends with scrolled consols each side creating a lyre shape.

FIG 3.15:
One of the most sumptuously carved memorials in the country can be found in the remote graveyard at Elmore, Glos (see also
Fig 4.3
).

FIG 3.16:
The scrolled consols at the edges of the end panels were probably derived from Classical decoration on the gables of Dutch-style, 17th-century houses. Between these were usually carvings of cherubs, foliage and fruit. Some also had a coat of arms, a feature which could still be found on the ends of chest tombs in the 19th century in churchyards anywhere in the country.

FIG 3.17:
Pedestal variations of Cotswold chest tombs became popular from the late 18th century as with these examples from Painswick, Glos (often known as Tea Caddies due to their shape).

FIG 3.18: SQUIRES MONUMENT, BURTON LAZARS, LEICS:
This elaborate and eccentric memorial, justifiably called a monument, was erected to William Squires who died in 1781. He left half of his £600 fortune for this multi-layered spectacle with a chest tomb on the lowest section and semi-circular piers at each end. Above this is a sarcophagus raised upon legs, with pie crust edging and a hollow pyramid raised on spheres on top of this. There are globes, skulls, an urn, and sculptures of Hope and Faith.

FIG 3.19: STONE, STAFFS:
The Jervis mausoleum in a Palladian style dating from around 1760 and positioned at the popular east end of the parish church.

Monuments and Mausoleums

There were an exceptional few who felt they deserved something a little bit special to be remembered by. The aristocracy usually had a family chapel, filled with their memorials, in the parish church next to their country house, but increasingly from the late 17th century some built freestanding mausoleums in churchyards. After one was erected for the first time on unconsecrated ground at Castle Howard in 1726 they also began appearing within the grounds of their estates. These were classically-inspired buildings (the name coming from the ancient ruler Mausolus, whose wife
erected a huge building for him to be buried in, one of the seven wonders of the world) within which coffins of generations of aristocratic families could be stacked. They were usually designed by favourite architects or by the owner himself and have little in common with the work of funerary masons around them in the churchyard.

Those without the local standing to build such a structure on consecrated land could still stand above the tombs and gravestones around them by erecting a huge, ostentatious structure best described as a monument. These often have a chest or pedestal tomb as a starting point and then have all manner of finials, columns, obelisks and sculptures erected on top of them. In the finest Victorian cemeteries huge shrine-like structures such as these were squeezed between mausoleums and family vaults in the select corners of the landscaped burial grounds. Occasionally monuments were raised by public subscription for people more deserving of remembrance than their social superiors. Many a churchyard has a column, obelisk or unique design of memorial erected in memory of those lost in a local mining disaster or train crash, poignant reminders of the human cost of the industrial progress which bankrolled the rich laid to rest around them.

FIG 3.20:
A large Victorian tomb of the proportions of a medieval shrine encased in its original iron railings. This memorial, which is larger than a chest tomb but perhaps not quite a monument, was built in the 1850s at Sheen, Staffs, and is packed with Gothic pointed arches and trefoils with heraldic symbols along the base.

C
HAPTER
4

Symbols and Imagery

FIG 4.1: ST MARY DE CASTRO CHURCH, LEICESTER:
Many of the finest gravestones from the 17th to 19th centuries featured symbols and images in addition to the inscription. These are best preserved on slates, most notably those which can be seen in the old churches of central Leicester, carved in the north of the county.

T
he most surprising aspect of many gravestones and tombs is the variety of symbolic carvings made upon them. These range from individual figures to complete scenes covering the upper half of slabs or sides of a chest. The earliest examples which can readily be seen today date from the late 17th and early 18th centuries when a fascination with mortality and time resulted in the use of symbols like skulls, crossbones, hourglasses, and the tools used to dig the grave. These became intermingled with those of a more optimistic vein, most notably angels or cherubs' heads which represent the resurrection.

Although these all can still be found in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, they have been generally replaced at this time by symbols of salvation, the figures of Hope, Faith and Charity often set under a tree, with nearly all memorials somewhere featuring an urn. By the Victorian period these dramatic scenes had fallen from favour and a compact image usually with a cross, flowers or foliage becomes common in the late 19th century.