Anyone like graveyards?


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I love rummaging around old graveyards. I remember the old Priory church graveyard across the way from the White Hart, Lenton. There were some really good slate stones with interesting inscriptions about the Crimean war and other mid-Victorian episodes.

 

Here are a few photos of old stones taken in Durness, Sutherland last week:

 

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1623:

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Memento Mori:

 

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1619AD. Can anyone decode this stone's message, please?

 

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Finally, the chapel - who would not want to be buried in such surroundings?!

 

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The best interpretation of the 1619 stone to date is: "Deck hand on a sailing ship. He was a deer young man who loved fishing " [from our own "Pianoman"].  I was thinking something along the lines of "Could turn his hand to sailing (or boat building), hunting and fishing".

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Same here Katy.......standing alone in a Graveyard and looking around sort of puts everything into Perspective,,

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The old village graveyards are interesting, trouble is the stones are often so weathered that it’s impossible to read the inscriptions. I remember posting these photos before, at the time I took them, but they’ve possibly disappeared due to Photobucket playing up last year.

Taken in Annoeulin, Northern France when we went to pay our respects to Our Albert, buried in the middle of a German section of the village graveyard.  The first photo is of the village General Cemetery, they certainly ‘go to town’ over there and cram ‘em in!

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I love looking at the old inscriptions  too 

This was an odd one I saw in Beziers , France , in the cathedral grounds, back in May .

Amongst a few relics stood up in a quadrangel was this stone with "Dorothy Smith" engraved on it , which stood out as being out of place with all the other ecclesiastical names.

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Googling her name it seems she was the wife of Bartholomew Walmesley , Dorothy was born 1677 and died 1699 aged just 22 .

I found that the Walmesleys were a big Catholic family but why they were in Beziers and what caused her death is a bit of a mystery .

They had one daughter who married a Lord Peter .

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Very interesting information from you all about overseas graveyards. They certainly pack them tightly in European Graveyards! In Portugal, many are cheek-by-jowl and only have space for a small monument.  Oz's picture of the setting for Scarborough graveyard in New South Wales is not unlike the one in Durness, Sutherland, too.

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Referring back to the question about the coded gravestone in Durness: I had an answer from someone who researched gravestones at Edinburgh some years ago.  He says that teh four symbols represent "Hand" The hand of God - used when soemone was taken by "Act of God" eg shipwreck. The ship represents a sailor. The Stag is for loyalty to one's spouse and the fish is the God symbol.  So, the message reads: " Died at sea by the hand of God. He was loyal to his spouse to the end and died in faith and the grace of God.

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St Mary's Church at Heworth Gateshead, the picture is of the Haddon family children who died in a fire early 1700. Rather morbid all lying in their bed. If i don't manage to upload pic you can find it online its a very imposing edifice worth a look.

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13 hours ago, Compo said:

Oz's picture of the setting for Scarborough graveyard in New South Wales is not unlike the one in Durness, Sutherland, too.

Quite similar but the water is warmer here and there is the beer garden at the Scarborough Hotel just down the road

Image result for scarborough hotel wollongong
 

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I like graveyards, though a lot of people think it's odd. I see them as full of history, not morbid at all. I loved the cemetery in Haworth and the central cemetery in chorlton manchester. It's vast, keep me visiting for a long time.

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I spent an entire morning at the Chorlton cemetery one day in the 1980s.  It's huge.

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