British churchyards are part of the nation’s priceless and unique heritage. Combining a rich and often untapped source of artistic language with local materials and craftsmanship, there is a vast range of memorials, the like of which cannot be found in any other country across the world.

Epitaphs, embellishments and inscriptions record the frailty of human life and its continuity. They inform us how previous generations lived and what they believed, providing windows into the contemporary social scene. An array of social history is evident in epitaphs of yesteryear as they often tell us about the professions, trades and occupations of the people who lived in a particular area at a particular time. It is perhaps appropriate that the churchyard should be the place where local skills had a natural outlet in sculpture, verse and epitaph as, in the Middle Ages, the churchyard served as the village meeting place, for fairs and other communal activities.

There are thousands of churchyards in Great Britain alone, most of them with dozens – some with hundreds – of gravestones. Many famous epitaphs have been reported in various media over the years but it is just as rewarding searching for the ‘ordinary folk’ in churchyards, many of whom are commemorated eccentrically, sadly, humorously and often anonymously.

Malmesbury is a small country town in north Wiltshire and in the graveyard of the beautiful abbey is a headstone to Hannah Twynnoy who died on 23rd October 1703 after being attacked by a wild animal which had escaped from a travelling circus (see main image above).

Hannah was a barmaid in Malmesbury when the travelling circus visited and, despite warnings, she is said to have teased the tiger – which promptly mauled her to death.

Poor Simon Gilker meanwhile may have been the very first victim of a ‘Guy Fawkes night’ accident. He died 90 years after the gunpowder plot was foiled and just as fireworks were introduced into the celebrations. His headstone in Holy Trinity Churchyard in Milton Regis, Kent, records his death, aged 48 years, who was killed by means of a Rockett November 5 1696 .

Walking through the churchyard of Reading St Laurence in Berkshire, some of the gravestones are in a poor state of repair as is unfortunately often the case in cemeteries across the world. However two memorials stand out (pictured above). The first is a wooden memorial to Henry West who lost his life in a whirlwind at the Great Western Railway Station in Reading on 24th March 1840. The other is what looks like a family grave, though with only initials and presumably the year of death of those buried. Alongside the burial registers for the parish, I am sure the ‘W’ family could be identified.

Sometimes the verses denoted upon the sculptures which fill the graveyards are ingenious, sometimes tender or brutal, sublime or ridiculous and, not infrequently, remarkably humorous. Who was responsible for the verses and inscriptions recorded on tombstones from the 17th and 18th centuries? Although the poets Pope, Gay and Young were the most frequently quoted ones, most of the epitaphs were the work of local rhymesters, amateur poets such as schoolmasters, parsons and parish clerks, and some of this work would most likely have come from the ballads which were the stock-in-trade of pedlars. Certainly, however, the local parson was the best-educated and best-suited person to provide an appropriate epitaph for one of his parishioners who had died. One of the best such local parsons was Canon Bowles of Bremhill, near Calne, from 1805 to 1845. Many graves in the district have epitaphs written by him and he went so far as to have small books of verse printed which he then distributed freely to parishioners.

Particular references are made on stones to relationships – which is very useful to historians, whether their interest is in local or family history – and in Great Chart, Kent, Nicholas Toke is buried with the following detail:

He married five wives whom he survived. At the age of 93 he walked to London to seek a sixth but died before he found her.

Two adjacent tombs at Birdbrook, Essex can top this:

Martha Blewitt ye wife of nine husbands successively buried 8 of ym., but last of all, ye woman dyed allsoe, was buryed May 7, 1681 Robert Hogand, the husband of seven wives, the last of whom he married January 1st 1739

So, when you have hatched – and maybe matched – your ancestors, don’t leave them un-dispatched. Try to find their place of rest – who knows what other information you might glean from an epitaph commemorating their life?