The Levelled Churchyard

[Zen Rabbit]

For anyone who has ever sought to find an ancestor in one of our many "tidied" churchyards I give you this poem by Thomas Hardy

"O passenger, pray list and catch
Our sighs and piteous groans,
Half stifled in this jumbled patch
Of wrenched memorial stones!

"We late-lamented, resting here,
Are mixed to human jam,
And each to each exclaims in fear,
'I know not which I am!'

"The wicked people have annexed
The verses on the good;
A roaring drunkard sports the text
Teetotal Tommy should!

"Where we are huddled none can trace,
And if our names remain,
They pave some path or p-ing place
Where we have never lain!

"There's not a modest maiden elf
But dreads the final Trumpet,
Lest half of her should rise herself,
And half some local strumpet!

"From restorations of Thy fane,
From smoothings of Thy sward,
From zealous Churchmen's pick and plane
Deliver us O Lord! Amen!"

[mykin]

Thomas has done a knowledgeable job on that poem. It is a sad state of affairs where this has/is happened. One side of my family is victim to this.

[Devonmade]

I just found out yesterday that the church I attended and got married in is to be demolished because of water seepage into it's limestone walls apparently it is too expensive to be repaired. Social housing will be built on the site. The church I was baptised in is mostly demolished only a corner exists.

One wonders what will be left for future genealogists to find.

[JanMay]

I found out that the local non-conformist chape,l where I was baptised and married, destroyed the records when they refurbished the interior in the 1980s--- sounds like the traveling preachers pocketbooks all over again--such a waste of wonderful information!!!

[daleaway]

The church where my parents married is now a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet.