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Family History Documents and Artefacts => Graveyards and Gravestones => Topic started by: JohnNorfolk on Sunday 30 September 12 19:40 BST (UK)
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Most headstone inscriptions are quotations from the Bible, verses from hymns or words suggested by funeral director's literature. Here is a selection of quotations from other sources that I have encountered in Norfolk. The year will be the approximate age of the gravestone although it is never known for certain how soon after death the stone was erected.
At Hevingham 1782
Stop reader let this solemn truth Your weary heart and soul engage/ A worm is in the bud of youth/ As well as at the root of age.
[Based on “Read ye that run, the solemn truth/ With which I charge my page/ A worm is in the bud of youth/ And at the root of age” William Cowper]
At Garboldisham 1811
How loved how valued avails thee not/ to whom related or by whom begot/ a heap of dust alone remains of thee/ 'tis all thou art and all the proud shall be
[from "Elegy to the memory of an unfortunate Lady" by Alexander Pope 1717]
At Northwold 1820
Bright be the place of the soul/ No lovelier spirit than thine/ Ever burst from its mortal control/ In the orb of the blessed to shine/ On Earth thou was all we could wish/ As thy soul shall immortally be/ And our sorrow may cease to repine/ When we know that thy God is with thee.
["Bright be the place of thy soul" from "Hebrew Melodies" by Lord Byron]
At Swaffham 1834
Oh! Thou Being of beings, source of all entity have mercy/ upon me thou Great Being.
[Something similar in original Latin, appears on the tomb of the Second Duke of Buckingham buried at Westminster Abbey 1687]
At Kingsway Cemetery, Downham Market 1881
O Blessed Lord whose mercy then removed/ A child whom every eye that looked on loved/ Support us, teach us, calmly to resign/ What we possessed and now is wholly thine. ["Six months to six years added he remains" by W Wordsworth]
At Denver St Mary 1885
Like crowded forest trees we stand/ And some are marked to fall/ The axe will strike at God’s command/ And soon will strike us all [William Cowper 1787]
At Burnham Sutton 1896
To will what God/ doth will, that is the only science/ that gives us any rest [Quotation Francois de Malherbe]
At Stow Bedon 1896
When I am dead my dearest/ Sing no sad songs for me/ Plant thou no laurels at my head/ Nor dainty cypress tree/ Be the green grass above me/With showers and dew drops wet/ And if thou wilt remember/ And if thou wilt forget.
[A song by Christina Rosetti]
At Churchside cemetery, Downham Market 1913
In that great cloistered stillness and seclusion/ By guardian angels led/ Safe from temptation safe from sin's pollution/ He lives whom we call dead. ["Resignation" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow]
At churchside cemetery. Downham Market 1914
God's finger touched him and he slept.[Alfred Lord Tennyson]
At Burnham Market 1930
Peace peace! He is not dead he doth not sleep/ he hath awakened from the dream of life/ [Quotation from Adonais by Percy Shelley]
At South Pickenham 1967
Goodnight sweet prince/ and the flights of angels/ sing thee to thy rest.[From "Hamlet" last lines of the play by William Shakespeare]
At Houghton in the Dale, St Giles 1982
In small proportions/ we just beauties see/ and in short measures/ life may perfect be [Quotation: Ben Jonson]
At Burnham Market 1990
Only when you drink/ from the river of silence/ shall you indeed sing/ and when you have/ reached the mountain top/ then you shall begin to climb/ and when the Earth/ shall claim your limbs/ then shall you truly dance [Kahlil Gibran]
At Burnham Thorpe 1992
Thou wert the morning star among the living ere thy fair light had fled [Quotation from Adonais by Percy Shelley]
At Calthorpe, 1992
All I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by
[From "Sea fever" by John Masefield]
At Burnham Market 2003
I will arise and go now for always night and day/ I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore/ while I stand on the roadway or on the pavements grey/ I hear it in the deep heart’s core["The Lake Isle of Innisfree" by W B Yeats]
At Burgh next Aylsham, 2009
Life shrinks or expands/ in proportion to our courage
[Quotation: Anais Nin]
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This is from the remote Ousby Churchyard in Cumbria, simple but touching.
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Very interesting. Thanks for posting, claytonbradley
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There's always the Burns one:
Epitaph For A Wag In Mauchline
Lament him, Mauchline husbands a',
He aften did assist ye;
For had ye staid hale weeks awa',
Your wives they ne'er had miss'd ye!
Ye Mauchline bairns, as on ye pass
To school in bands thegither,
O tread ye lightly on his grass -
Perhaps he was your father!
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Clearly,
yours would be an example of a fifth category of epitaphs which you might call DIY. They are often difficult to identify for you cannot be sure they are original compositions. For example:
Death is certain you may see
For suddenly it came to me
In perfect health to me was sent
An accident most violent
Or on a small headstone resembling a mile stone "miles to go....."
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On a grave in tAsmania
"Here lies our flower
Our little Nell
God thought he too
would like a smell."
Wiggy
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I just liked the bit "and a good man". It's so simple. It says far more than all the flowery prose and verse that is so often seen.
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It does - what one would like on one's own grave! (or woman ;) )
Wiggy :)
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A sadder one of a Great Aunt, it shows her name & death date plus
"Died of her 17th child"
She was born 1745, married 1763, died 1790.
17 pregnancies in 27 years
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On the grave of a two year old little girl, rural Shropshire:-
Was to my parents a a rose,
A flower sweet and good.
But death you see has called on me,
And nipped me in the bud.
She died over a hundred years ago. Viktoria.
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Much quoted, but I can't guarantee its authenticity. It does appear in the Faber Book of Epigrams and Epitaphs though.
'Here lie the bones of Elizabeth Charlotte
That was born a virgin and died a harlot
She was aye a virgin at seventeen
An extraordinary thing for Aberdeen'
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That scans as if William McGonagle wrote it!---"Bridge over the RiverTay---"
Poor girl, she did not deserve that , they ought to have listed her "clients" too.It takes two to tango!
It might have been a very large gravestone then though.
Viktoria.
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Here are a couple from the Manchester General Cemetery Transcription Project.
www.mgctp.moonfruit.com
Luzzu :)
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The one for my Great-Grandmother at Rhosymedre Denbighshire reads;
Ever smiling,always content.
Loved and respected wherever she went.
Regards
William Russell Jones.
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How lovely.
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I read this in a small book of epitaphs I had ... it is supposed to be genuine :)
Here lies Mary the wife of John Ford
We pray her soul has gone to the Lord
If for Hell she forsook this life
She better be there than John Fords wife
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Not quite an epitaph, but there's a local stone where the verse is:
Reader, stopped as you pass by,
as you stand now, so once did I.
As I lie now, so you will you be.
Prepare, therefore, to follow me.
To which, a few years ago, someone scribbled underneath:
I read the papers, saw the tales,
Your reputation still prevails.
So to follow you, I'm not content
'til God confirms which way you went
We cleaned it off, but I can only assume some disgruntled descendant was keeping a watch as it keeps being re-written...
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Here is an epitaph on a Mr. Jones, a celebrated bone merchant:-
"Here lies the bones of William Jones,
Who, when alive, collected bones
But Death, that bony, grizzly spectre,
That most amazing bone collector.
Has boned poor Jones so snug and tidy
That here he lies in bona fide."
Aberdare Times 29 December 1866
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Looking to contact MGCTP please.
If anyone can help would be grateful.
Thanks
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Here's one which I came across in the churchyard of Old St Andrew's Church, Holcombe in Somerset. This was a plague village in 1348 and the surviving inhabitants moved about a mile to the south and started again. But the Church remained and continued to be used until a new one was built c1900 in the "new" village.
The churchyard however is still used for burials. One of the tombs is the family one of Captain R F Scott (Scott of the Antarctic) with an appropriate memorial.
However, this one in particular caught my eye for its sheer simplicity.
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The Maids Grave, Winterbourne, Bristol.
A reminder that childbirth was risky in times past dedicated to Hannah, wife of Robert Fouracre, who died in 1829.
"Thirty years I was a maid
thirteen months a wife
four hours I was a mother and then I lost my life,
Behold my friend and cast an eye
then go thy way prepare to die
repent with speed make no delay
in my prime was called away"
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In a very remote Shropshire graveyard attached to the Lord’s Hill Paruculsr Baptist Chapel.
A remote relative ,little girl. Selena Mansell.
“ Was to my parents
As a rose,
A flower sweet and good,
But death you see,
Has called on me,
And nipped me in the bud,”
Another to a miner ,killed when the rope lowering the cage down the shaft broke .
He and another man were in a basket affair,cleaning the inside of the shaft from I suppose horizontal stalactites.,.
“ Not a single shaft shall hit
‘Till the God of love see fit”.
Quite inappropriate really.
Viktoria.
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This is one of my favourites :
In ever loving memory of our darling baby Blanche Rose who fell asleep Feb. 15th 1898 aged two years.
Adieu sweet babe short was thy stay
Just lent awhile and called away
Thy angel face we all did see
But oh how soon deprived of thee
Sleep on dear babe and take thy rest
God calleth those he loveth best