Gravestones for sale!!!????

[vic1]

this isn't a new thing, my secondary school yard was paved with  grave stones from the church across the road because the road was widened or some work was done to the churchyard am unsure of exactly why. used to try and match up pieces when we were bored but unfortunately some were upside down !!!I don't think any particulars were kept for them. and i think i can't find some of my own in  local grave yard . councils now remove them if they are unstable and the ones i was looking for were two hundred years old so probably very worn and weathered . i know take a digital camera and photograph as many as i can. you get quite a few on one frame if they are clear and zoom in and out look at them. Ican't agree with selling them ad lib  as surely morally they belong to the descendants of the deceased.

[Tephra]

An then we wonder why we can't find Great Great Grandmother Mabels' headstone.........it's part of somebodys' pathway!!!


Barbara

[millymcb]

In the early 80s our college bought an old church and converted it - and used  gravestones as paving for the pathway.  We students were in uproar and they promised they would be moving the graves properly but I doubt that they did.

Milly

[Lydart]

Friends of mine bought a church to convert into a house, which they did with great skill and tastefully, retaining ecclesiastical features.  The churchyard was full of gravestones ... so theytidied it up, got rid of all the brambles and nettles, and have made a semi-wild garden around them, with flowers growing on all the graves.  Its bright, quiet and full of bird-song ... and people can still come to see the graves, cared for and loved.

[vic1]

that's really caring  and must make for great hide and seek. although i can't say i'd be to keen there again i'm scared of me own shadow.

[Lydart]

My friends say the neighbours are very quiet !

[Tephra]

My friends say the neighbours are very quiet !

So far.................     


Barbara

[stockman fred]

Slightly off topic but gravestone related- a few years ago, there was an archaeological survey taking place at Fordingbridge in Hants prior to some building work, and they dug up a broken gravestone which had been used to cover an old well. The inscription dated from the 1820s or thereabouts but the stone was snapped in half.
The interesting thing was, after some research they discovered a complete, identical stone still standing in a local graveyard, so evidently the 1820s mason had dropped the original and broken it, then cut his losses by selling it as a cover.
Fred

[minnie222]

Well that's like sacrilege isnt it.

Why couldnt they be used like a fence around a garden bed or such like in the new church grounds.

Some of the cemeteries here in Aus only guarantee you 99 years.  I think its shocking when they rip up headstones and re use the grounds in some cemeteries too.

barb