In Search of Gravestones Old and Curious

ll upon a headstone somewhat elaborately carved. Although aged, it was in good preservation, and without much troub

NEWHAVEN

below the design

he remains of

this life t

, aged 66 ye

, who departe

ly 1802, age

en struck by an allegorical grav

... then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in Victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" The reference in another ritual t

local genius of the period, and I searched for other evidences of his sk

T NEWHAVE

ds belo

ry of Thomas

nn Alderton,

10th day of Ap

ar of h

ceptions original and native to the place, but I do not think so now. In point of taste, the first, which is really second in order of date, is perhaps less questionable than the other. The hope of a joyful resurrection, however rudely disp

, though symbols of death, eternity, and the future state are in plentiful command for such purposes. Something like this same ornament may be found on a very old flat stone in the churchyard of W

WIDCOMBE,

another mason. It represents the old and extinct bridge over the Sussex Avon at Newhaven, and it honours a certain brewer of the town, whose brewery is still carried on there and is famous for its "Tipper" ale. Allowing that it was carved by a different workman, i

T NEWHAVE

n is the follow

ry of Thomas

life May y'e 1

Yea

kind regard th

ass where TIPP

ingenuous, bl

hat few dare do

nd History w

PHYSICK and

TINGO he both

navish act to

ugh Life a var

ortal HUDIBR

al truth, suc

ser, laugh mo

disappointed me, but, with my after-knowledge, may say that three s

und nothing to shew that Lewes was the seat of so much skill, and I have since failed to discover the source in Brighton or any other adjacent town. Indeed, it may be said at once that large towns are the most unlikely of all places in which to find peculiar gravestones. At Lewes, howeve

5.-AT

nes, died May

yea

d I have learnt almost to discard in this connection the theory of local idiosyncrasies. Even when we find, as we do find, similar, and almost identical, designs in neighbouring churchyards, or in the same churchyard, it is safer to conjecture that a meaner sculptor has copied t

T PLUMSTE

h Bennett, d

yea

me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God," quoted on the stone itself. In this and many similar cases in which the design and text are used for old or elderly people, they hav

oing example in the same churchyard, even more rem

dedi

k, died 1793,

is wife, died

ar

criptio

f persons thes

ll dis

e is to be found at West Ham, Essex, the same symbolical fl

ks it out in a new fashion. The term new can hardly be attributed to the notion of a plucked flow

Dartford burial-ground probably ha

.-AT D

y, died 1755,

ed from the parish church, and one of the oldest cemeteries in England, is anothe

.-AT D

low, died.

o or three miles from Dartford, both these flo

ich illustrate it will serve to introd

he longest-lived of all the old memorials cannot be very much longer extended, and this may be my excuse for preserving and perpetuating the features of some of them as a not uninteresting phase of the vanishing past. I do not claim for my subject any great importance, but present it as one of the small contributions which make up history. One other plea I may urge in my defence. This is a branch of study which, so far as I can ascertain, ha