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 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

Newmachar Kirkyard in the snow

Newmachar Kirkyard, Aberdeenshire

Visited December 2009

I've previously blogged about this churchyard in the village I grew up in, here.  But as it's winter, I thought I'd share this photo of it in the snow, which I took a few years ago, with the churchyard looking lovely in the winter light and snow.

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.