Bristol Cathedral

Bristol Cathedral

Visited October 2017

Bristol Cathedral was founded in the 12th Century and, like most old buildings, has been added to and lost parts over the centuries. 

The cathedral is smaller than some, so don't go expecting a huge building like Canterbury. It has lovely parts including the quiet garden which opens off the café, and houses gravestones and memorials among the well-tended flowerbeds. Inside the building, there are memorials around the walls from the late Medieval period onwards. The north transept in particular has a large quantity of memorials of the 17th and 18th centuries.

St Oswald's Church, Paddlesworth, Kent

St Oswald's Church, Paddlesworth, Kent

Visited April 2018

"The Highest Ground
The Lowest Steeple
The Poorest Parish
The Fewest People"

St Oswald's Church in the tiny village of Paddlesworth, near Folkestone in Kent, dates from the 12th century. It's accessed via a path between fields from the Cat and Custard Pot pub (where you can get the key, if the church is locked). It's well worth a visit, as is the pub, if you're in the area.

The church itself is very small, with two parts. The 12th century south doorway (on the opposite side of the building from the door you enter through) is ornate, and stands out from the rest of the exterior. 

There's a small graveyard surrounding it, mainly of 19th century graves although there are records of burials going back to the 15th century in the churchyard. Only a few gravestones remain, as it has clearly been cleared at some point; raised areas of the churchyard give clues to the long history of burials on the site. 

St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol

St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol

Visited October 2017

The church of St Mary Redcliffe has stood in Bristol for over 800 years. Although it is a parish church, it is both large and stunning - a Grade 1 listed wonderful example of Gothic architecture. 

The interior is no less wonderful than the exterior, with lots of light, a vaulted ceiling, and - of course - memorials around the walls and on the floor. The great and the good who are buried here include Admiral William Penn, a naval commander in the English Civil War and father of the founder of the state of Pennsylvania. I somehow managed not to take a photograph of that, or of the rather splendid 15th century Canynges tomb... Maybe that means a repeat visit is in order!

The church is surrounded by a churchyard, but all the stones have been cleared leaving only lawns and pavement behind.

Narwhal tusk in St Mary Redcliffe

St Pancras Old Churchyard, London

St Pancras Old Churchyard, London

Visited January 2019

I've visited this churchyard previously, but I'm always fascinated by the 'Hardy Tree', surrounded by old gravestones placed there when part of the burial ground was cleared to make way for an extension to St Pancras station (possibly by the author Thomas Hardy, who was working in the churchyard at the time).

This time, I was also able to spot a few stones with skulls on - yay! - and visited the former burial place of Mary Wollstonecraft. She is best known as the author of 'A Vindication of the Rights of Woman', a key feminist text published in 1792, and her husband William Godwin. Mary was also the mother of Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein. In 1851, following the wishes of Mary Shelley, the remains fo Wollstonecraft and Godwin were removed to the Shelley family tomb in the church of St Peter in Bournemouth. The gravestone in St Pancras OIld Churchyard was restore din 1992, the bicentenary of 'Vindication'.

The Hardy Tree

The gravestone of Mary Wollstonecraft and Willaim Godwin

St Nicholas Kirkyard, Aberdeen (2017)

St Nicholas Kirkyard, Aberdeen

Visited December 2017

The kirkyard (churchyard) of St Nicholas is right in the heart of Aberdeen, on the main shopping street, Union Street. I've visited here before, in the summer, but on a winter's day it's still lovely (if not somewhere to sit on a bench and ponder while waiting for a bus). The early graves were much clearer without their cloak of ivy from the summer, and somehow the leaves, moss and damp air made this feel more like a country churchyard than it does later in the year. 

Around the walls of the kirkyard are the most impressive memorials, presumably to the great and the good. Many date to the 17th and 18th centuries, and there are some lovely heraldic arms, skeletons and ships dotted among the inscriptions. The main burial area is dominated by moss-covered table tombs as well as gravestones from the late 1700s onwards. The earlier ones are at the side nearest Union Street, with those over the other side (Schoolhill?) being a bit later and more staid.

St Dunstan in the East, City of London

 St Dunstan in the East, City of London

Visited June 2014

Not much remains of the churchyard of this simply gorgeous spot, which lies just to the north of London Bridge, between the Monument and the Tower. The church dates from before the Fire of London in 1666, and was repaired to a design by Christopher Wren after the Fire. It was damaged in the Blitz in 1941, and never rebuilt. After the War, it was decided to turn it into a park managed by the City of London, opening in 1970 in and around the standing ruins of the church. There are some gravestones around the walls, all dating from before the 1850s when the churchyard was closed to burials. 

This is a wonderful place to visit, and highly recommended for a visit - there might not be many gravestones to look at, but the atmosphere and ruins are an oasis in the busy City.

Larbert Old Parish Churchyard, Falkirk

Churchyard of Larbert Old Parish Church, near Falkirk, Scotland

Visited September 2015

A short walk away from the train station in the village of Larbert (now a suburb of Falkirk), is this lovely old churchyard. The earliest gravestones date from the 17th century, earlier than the current (19th century) church. An area of the churchyard is set aside for burials of the great and the good of the Carron Company, an iron making company established in Falkirk in the 18th century. This area contains a Doric Greek style mausoleum, among other

Notably, although there is no shortage of 18th and early 19th century gravestones, there are very few memento mori on the tombstones.

One thing to look out for, which fascinated me, is the large number of gravestones with a single date, and the names of a man and a woman. Why no dates of death? Because it was traditional than on their wedding, the couple would be gifted a burial plot and headstone! And if you notice that they have different surnames, that's because in Scotland in the 19th century it was still usual for a woman to retain her own surname after marriage.