Betjeman’s Best British Churches. Richard Surman

were busy inserting machine-made letters into white Italian marble.

      ST JUST-IN-ROSELAND: ST JUST – coastal lichen and moss on one of the headstones

      © Michael Ellis

      The elegance of the local stone carver’s craft is not to be seen only in the lettering. In the 18th century it was the convention to carve symbols round the top of the headstone and down the sides. The earlier examples are in bold relief, cherubs with plough-boy faces and thick wings, and scythes, hour glasses and skulls and cross-bones diversify their tops. You will find in one or another country churchyard that there has been a local sculptor of unusual vigour and perhaps genius who has even carved a rural scene above some well-graven name. Towards the end of the 18th century the lettering becomes finer and more prominent, the decoration flatter and more conventional, usually in the Adam manner, as though a son had taken on his father’s business and depended on architectural pattern-books. But the tops of all headstones varied in shape. At this time too it became the custom in some districts to paint the stones and to add a little gold leaf to the lettering. Paint and stone by now have acquired a varied pattern produced by weather and fungus, so that the stones are probably more beautiful than they were when they were new, splodged as they are with gold and silver and slightly overgrown with moss. On a sharp frosty day when the sun is in the south and throwing up the carving, or in the west and bringing out all the colour of the lichens, a country churchyard may bring back the lost ages of craftsmanship more effectively than the church which stands behind it. Those unknown carvers are the same race as produced the vigorous inn signs which were such a feature of England before the brewers ruined them with artiness and standardization. They belong to the world of wheelwrights and wagon-makers, and they had their local styles. In Kent the chief effect of variety was created by different-sized stones with elaborately-scalloped heads to them, and by shroud-like mummies of stone on top of the grave itself; in the Cotswolds by carving in strong relief; in slate districts by engraved lettering. In counties like Surrey and Sussex, where stone was rare, there were many wooden graveyard monuments, two posts with a board between them running down the length of the grave and painted in the way an old wagon is painted. But most of these wooden monuments have perished or decayed out of recognition.

      ‘At rest’, ‘Fell asleep’, ‘Not dead but gone before’ and other equally non-committal legends are on the newer tombs. In Georgian days it was the custom either to put only the name or to apply to the schoolmaster or parson for a rhyme. Many a graveyard contains beautiful stanzas which have not found their way to print and are disappearing under wind and weather. Two of these inscriptions have particularly struck my fancy. One is in Bideford and commemorates a retired sea-captain Henry Clark, 1836. It summarizes for me a type of friendly and pathetic Englishman to be found hanging about, particularly at little seaports.

      For twenty years he scarce slept in a bed;

      Linhays and limekilns lull’d his weary head

      Because he would not to the poor house go,

      For his proud spirit would not let him to.

      The black bird’s whistling notes at break of day

      Used to wake him from his bed of hay.

      Unto the bridge and quay he then repaired

      To see what shipping up the river stirr’d.

      Oft in the week he used to view the bay,

      To see what ships were coming in from sea,

      To captains’ wives he brought the welcome news,

      And to the relatives of all the crews.

      At last poor Harry Clark was taken ill,

      And carried to the work house ’gainst his will:

      And being of this mortal life quite tired,

      He lived about a month and then expired.

      The other is on an outside monument on the north wall of the church at Harefield, near Uxbridge, one of the last three country villages left in Middlesex. It is to Robert Mossendew, servant of the Ashby family, who died in 1744. Had he been a gentleman his monument would at this time have been inside the church. He was a gamekeeper and is carved in relief with his gun above this inscription.

      In frost and snow, thro’ hail and rain

      He scour’d the woods, and trudg’d the plain;

      The steady pointer leads the way,

      Stands at the scent, then springs the prey;

      The timorous birds from stubble rise,

      With pinions stretch’d divide the skies;

      The scatter’d lead pursues the sight

      And death in thunder stops their flight;

      His spaniel, of true English kind,

      With gratitude inflames his mind;

      This servant in an honest way,

      In all his actions copies Tray.

      The churchyard indeed often contains cruder but more lively and loving verses than the polished tributes inscribed in marble tablets within the church to squires and peers and divines of the county hierarchy. The Dartmoor parish of Buckland Monachorum displays this popular epitaph to a blacksmith which may be found in other parishes:

      My sledge and hammer both declin’d,

      My bellows too have lost their wind.

      My fire’s extinct, my forge decay’d,

      And in the dust my vice is laid,

      My coal is spent, my iron’s gone,

      My nails are drove, my work is done.

      Though such an epitaph can scarcely be called Christian, it is at least not an attempt to cover up in mawkish sentiment or in crematorial good taste the inevitability of death.

      The Outside

      The church whose southern side we are approaching is probably little like the building which stood there even two centuries before, although it has not been rebuilt. The outside walls were probably plastered, unless the church is in a district where workable stone has long been used and it is faced with cut stone known as ashlar. Churches which are ashlar-faced all over are rare, but many have an ashlar-faced western tower, or aisle to the north-east or south-east, or a porch or transept built of cut stone in the 15th century by a rich family. Some have a guild chapel or private chantry where Mass was said for the souls of deceased members of the guild or family. This is usually ashlar-faced and has a carved parapet as well, and is in marked contrast with the humble masonry of the rest of the church.

      Rubble or uneven flints were not considered beautiful to look at until the 19th century. People were ashamed of them and wished to see their churches smooth on the outside and inside walls, and weather-proof. At Barnack and Earl’s Barton the Saxons have even gone so far as to imitate in stone the decorative effects of wooden construction. Plaster made of a mixture of hair or straw and sand and lime was from Saxon times applied as a covering to the walls. Only the cut stone round the windows and doors was left, and even this was lime-washed. The plaster was thin and uneven. It was beautifully coloured a pale yellow or pink or white according to the tradition of the district. And if it has now been stripped off the church, it may still be seen on old cottages of the village if any survive. The earlier the walls of a church are, the less likely they are to be ashlar-faced, for there was no widespread use of cut stone in villages until the late 14th century when transport was better, and attention which had formerly been expended on abbeys was paid to building and enlarging parish churches.

      EAST SHEFFORD: ST THOMAS – plaster on exterior walls would once have been common but is now a rarity; here too is a use of many materials: brick, stone, tile and timber

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