# Grave Stories



## Perpetual Man (Jul 29, 2015)

I’m not sure whether this will make and interesting thread or not; and I hope that it does not seem too macabre, I know I don’t – but then that might come with my job and the fact that I walk through the local graveyard a couple of times a day on my way to and from work.

Grave stones are a solid link with the past, simple historical markers that might even be considered documents a glance into the past.

Each one tells a story it might only be two lines a name and a time of birth and death, or it might be a brief description of a life lived, of family, a poem or biblical quote. All tell things about the person laid to rest there, which in turn is a glimpse at the past.

Others are mysteries, raising questions that only the imagination can fill.

The local Churchyard is a small one, and it only dates back a few hundred years, but as I walk through it I have taken to reading some of the inscriptions. I have lived here all my life and I have discovered and noticed things that I have not seen before. It has made me realise that there are a lot of hidden stories out there, engraved on stone.


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## Perpetual Man (Jul 29, 2015)

*Two Tombs*

Just outside the main door to the church are two tombs, raised stone bases with heavy slate markers on top. They are side by side, the tops two separate pieces, but so close together that there is barely a join. They are old (relatively speaking), the language is slightly more archaic – ‘Here lyeth’ The first gives the name of the deceased, the place where she lived and the date she died. It does not give a date of birth, this is usually a given, instead it gives the date she was baptised. It seems to indicate that there was no record of when she was born, sometime in the late 1600’s probably, but the only record they had was the date she was baptised.

Next to her lies her husband, his is very similar. It gives the date of birth and death, but the interesting thing is that he died just two days after her. Was there a reason for this? Were they ill together? Did he die of a broken heart? Or could he just not live without her? It is one of those where there are no real answers.


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## Perpetual Man (Jul 29, 2015)

*Why They Look Like That*

There are a number of other raised tombs, a lot of these are built with red brick. The date on these are late 19th, early 20th century. Tombs of this style are normally made of stone, so the red brick is something of an anachronism, until you realise that although the village is a sleepy little country settlement, but at one time it had a thriving brickworks and quarry here and the bricks would have been easily accessible. Another sign of things sliding into place when the jigsaw pieces of the past are put into place.


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## Perpetual Man (Jul 29, 2015)

*A Local Hero*

In front of the two tombs, in front of the Church there is a large stone cross, a small black iron fence around the base. I have no idea how many times I have walked past it and paid no heed. The other day I happened to be waiting for one of the kids to come hurtling down the path, and actually read the inscription. It is a marker for a vicar of the parish, who went to war with one of the Devonshire regiments during World War I. He served as a spiritual advisor to the troops, and perhaps more importantly (sort of) as a battlefield medic, who went to the aid of soldiers wounded during ongoing conflict. He helped both sides – men who needed aid received it. He was killed in his mid-thirties by an exploding mortar.

A heroic tale and one that I’m pretty sure is all but forgotten, would be lost in time unless you pause to read the words engraved on stone.


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## Perpetual Man (Jul 29, 2015)

*The Tragedy of The Manor*

There is an odd marker in the graveyard. It is a raised cuboid mad of four pieces of slate, on the top there is an abstract shape, it could be two hands cupping a sphere, or a flower, or a head wearing a cover. The grave is a notorious one in the village, and although there is no story attached to it the dates themselves tell a tragic tale. Eight names, all with the same surname, varying in age from 2 to 12 with one adult. The dates of death are all within six weeks of one another.

The story goes that the family lived in a large manor house on the edge of the village, and that one by one they became ill. Then they began to die. The local legend says that they would walk down to the village to bury one child, and by the time they returned another would be dead. Although not exactly true it must have felt like that as something struck down all but one of the children and father, claiming the mother along the way.

There are all sorts of tales that link into it, from ghosts to curses but the truth is believed to be that a sheep fell into the well where they drew the water and caused it to become infected. Whether it was stagnant or cholera that claimed them it is a snapshot of a time when life was a lot more fragile and tragedy could strike so remorselessly.


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## steelyglint (Jul 31, 2015)

St. Mary's church in Bideford has something of a first amongst the occupants of its grave yard. Nearby is the site of the manor house that belonged to Sir Richard Grenville. This chap got up to quite a lot of things in his time, not least teaming up with that other state-sanctioned pirate, Raleigh, and depositing on Roanoke Island, off the north American east coast, the group that would become known as 'The Lost Colony'.

He made at least a couple of trips, on one of which he was joined on the return journey by a north American native. This chap was baptized in March 1588, the next entry in the records being the last with his burial in April 1589, killed by influenza, which seems to have also killed Grenville's daughter, Rebecca, who was buried on the same day. 'Raleigh', as Grenville had renamed the Roanoke Island native, was the first American to visit Britain, the first to die here, and the first to be buried here, as a convert, in a christian burial ground.

Not sure about the solidity of that 'conversion'. With tens of thousands of years of absolute trust in the spirits-of-rock-and-tree world of his ancestors behind him, I can't see him losing his 'faith' so easily - it isn't like 16th century Devon didn't have rocks and trees. In fact, give or take a few cows and cabbages, that's about all Devon did have then, and it hasn't changed much since: Ooh Arr! We've now got street lights, an ASDA and an excellent charity bookshop. I think his 'conversion' was either suggested by Grenville, to keep from offending local extremist sensibilities, or it was something he came up with himself for basically the same purpose.

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