Friday 18 November 2016

Churchyards - Matters Of Death And Immortality

We often visit old churches as we trundle about the English countryside on this blog. But, other than the odd picture of a particularly grand or unusual gravestone, I don't seem to have mentioned much about the churchyards in which they stand. So here goes.....


Although almost all our villages date back to way before the Domesday Book, archaeological evidence has shown that many settlements have moved around over the years, so that the modern village may not always be in exactly the same place as its Medieval or Saxon equivalent, and it's quite possible that there'll be a Roman or even prehistoric settlement discovered somewhere else in the neighbouring fields. A village might first form around a spring, but later a road might be built nearby and gradually more and more houses are built near the road to take advantage of passing trade till the original settlement becomes deserted. But it probably still has the same name - and it probably still has the same church. Which is why some churches now stand out in the fields, away from the houses.


Some of the churches we've seen date back 1,000 years, but before that there was probably an earlier church on the same site, and before that quite possibly a pre-Christian gathering place and maybe even some sort of burial mound. In fact we may have been burying our dead in the same plot for well over two millennia. When, as in the two churches I've shown you above, the village is small and the churchyard is large there's been no real problem. But sometimes things get mighty crowded....


Lets think about this: if there are, say, 200 people in the village and if, as throughout most of history, they live on average to the age of about 50......errrrr.....then there'll be about 4 burials every year......errmm....that's about 400 new graves every century....er....4,000 every thousand years. You begin to get the picture.


So it's not at all unusual to find headstones stacked against the churchyard wall where old graves have been dug up to allow a new burial.


I suppose I could tell you that the graveyard in Grantchester, which is pictured above, has become crowded because everyone in the village has exceedingly long legs, but actually those are normal people walking on ground that has built up over the centuries because of the interment of so many corpses and coffins. (Don't tell them; it'll ruin their afternoon - the strolling couple I mean, not the corpses!). Maintaining that retaining wall costs the village a small fortune.


Around the church you can see where the original foundations of the church were at a lower level.


And as you go inside you'll find a series of steps which lead you down to the level of the church floor. You probably wouldn't notice unless, like I was recently, you were pushing someone in a wheelchair when they becomes a formidable obstacle - though there are some ramps stowed to the left of the door.


In urban areas the overcrowding of graveyards became a real problem as the towns grew in size. Bones were often unearthed by the gravediggers and were stored in boneyards. In Paris whole graveyards were excavated and the bones removed to catacombs because the stench, the pollution of the water supply and resultant health hazard had become intolerable. Many towns created new cemeteries outside the built up areas, though frequently the town spread out and soon enclosed them.


In fact the smell from graveyards was always a problem even in rural locations and is probably why we started to put flowers on graves. A good big stone slab was also a good investment if you didn't want the corpse to be dug up by dogs or foxes. The wealthy paid extra for their loved ones to be buried inside the church and, when that was stopped because of the stink inside the building, they invested in mausoleums in the churchyards.


Enough of death and decay! Lets talk about something as near to immortal as is possible in this world. 

Just about every churchyard you explore has at least one yew tree. Some of these are very old indeed and just a few are reckoned to have been here longer than Christianity. One in St Cynog’s churchyard at Defynnog, near Sennybridge in Wales, has been dated at 5,000 years old! Plenty of people will tell you that the yew is grown in churchyards as a symbol of immortality, either Christian or pagan. And there may be some truth in what they say but.... 


There's another reason why every village had to have a supply of yew wood and that was nothing less than the defence of the nation. For yew was the wood of choice for making longbows. The sapwood springs back from having been stretched, ideal for the outside of the curve of the bow, while the heartwood springs back from being compressed, ideal for the inside of the bow's curve. Bow-makers have known this for a long time and remains of bows from the neolithic show that they were made in this way too.

But why in the churchyard? Well, because yew is also poisonous, so was grown in the only place where farm animals could not browse upon them. 

Probably.


Take care.



34 comments:

  1. Thank you so much for this extremely interesting lesson on English churchyards and burial customs. I hope the dead get more that the 25 years beneath the turf that they get here - unless the family pays up, that is.

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  2. Such an interesting post, John. Yew explained it well...groan!

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  3. Hi John - thanks for this ... all makes absolute sense - it's so interesting how history has built up around people and their needs ... I love that the way we step on ancient history ... and most don't realise it ..

    Really well put and written up - with lovely photos ... cheers Hilary

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  4. I love mooching around churchyards - usually there is a lot of interesting information just waiting to be found. We live fairly near to Hubberholme church and churchyard where JB Priestley's ashes were buried - it was his favourite church. And while in the US some years ago we found Robert Frost's grave - all such interesting stuff. Thanks John for making me recall memories.

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  5. A good lesson about the earlier burial customs and churchyards. I would think that burials in a cemetery will slow down as people decide to be cremated instead.

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  6. You give us an interesting insight in history, John. Thanks for taking us back in time.

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  7. Fascinating history!! I've never even thought about graveyard overcrowding.

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  8. Such ancient history compared to 150 years here! In most cases here churches and graveyards are in different locations. There are lots of small rural cemeteries around the countryside here, but not nearly as many churches.

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  9. What an interesting post! You have so much history in your country! I hope to come and visit someday.

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  10. I have walked around underground in the catacombs in Paris, and marvelled at the skulls and bones lining the walls, arranged so decoratively.... an amazing experience. Thankyou for posting such a fascinating history lesson. My home church (where I lived in Devon as a child) is the same.... foundations very much lower than current ground level and have to go down a few steps to enter the church.

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  11. Reading this post was an educational experience to me about English churchyards and burial customs. Why yew tree in churchyard reminded me of “Higanbana” (Cluster Amaryllis) in the graveyard of Japanese temples. It’s bulb is poisonous. In the olden times before cremation, the flowers in graveyard was to keep wild animals from feasting on the corpses.

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  12. Wow! What a great bit of historical trivia you have given! I love to learn such things and your post was just the right length to keep my attention all the way through :) These are lovely churches and I am so glad that the are still in good hands.

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  13. so very interesting! I love walking grave yards; the history of the area is on display. We had a cholera epidemic in the early 20th century, and it our town grave yard is a grave and memorial to a beloved doctor who treated the sick and eventually died of it himself.

    All this piling up of corpses, digging up bones for boneyards, etc. makes me think that cremation is the way to go. I do enjoy visiting graves of my ancestors, but still.

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  14. What a unique place. The history enchanted in the stones...

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  15. On so many other blogs, John, I visit for a pretty picture or two. But, when I visit your blog, I do see exceptional photos, of course, but I also get another fine class in my British country education. Thanks again for this most informative post.

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  16. Very interesting post...love those old churches. Imagine all the living they have seen!

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  17. So many interesting facts, many of which I did not know. I never thought of the odor that would permeate the air from inchurch burials. Amazing that they continued to occur for all the years they did.

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  18. Hi John
    Enjoying the blog and beautiful photography as always.
    I'd heard that the longbow connection is a myth. English yew trees just aren't tall and straight enough for bows, and there weren't enough, so bowstaves had to be imported. Apparently across Europe supply didn't meet demand in the late medieval period and this is arguably one of the reasons for the change to, actually less effective, firearms.
    Cheers,
    Tom

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    1. Thanks for the information, though I suppose they would have been planting trees for future use which today would be old trees. Here in E Anglia there are very few really ancient trees.

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  19. Beautifil photos and text of history.
    I love to walk in cemetery and in every new place (country) I like to see the church and cemetery.

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  20. Churchyards can tell a lot about some churches. What astonished me that there no paths to walk in the graveyards. And this is so similar to our graveyards.

    Beautiful stories and beautiful photographs!!!

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  21. I love old churchyards! Lovely shots.

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  22. Hello John & first many thanks for coming by my blog.
    Your own blog is a pleasure to visit, both to see fine photos of your area & learn something new!
    Best wishes
    Christine

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  23. Thank you for the wealth of information John - no matter where one travels in the world, somehow we seem drawn to old graveyards and churches! Interesting to read about the Yew tree. Blessings

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  24. Another interesting story if not a tad gruesome in places. Nice illustrations too.

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  25. Old grave-yards have a character of their own - always a tad sad but I'm sure a wealth of history can be gleaned from these headstones

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  26. Well now you've got me thinking John. More so in Europe and Asia because of the history and population numbers but here also, there have been people dying and buried for centuries.. I don't much like the idea of walking over them on a daily basis ☺ Fascinating post as always.

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  27. Lots to learn here. I always wondered about graves in churches----the stench--argh.
    In New Orleans where tombs are above the ground because ground water floods the underground graves, tombs are re opened after a prescribed number of years and the bones are pushed to the back so that the tomb can be reused. Things decay fast in humid hot New Orleans.

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  28. Thanks for taking us on a trip around the graveyards in your pretty area John - love all that discolouration on the stones and everything so lush and green.

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  29. It's been a while since you took us on a walk somewhere beautiful, John. Been missing what you have been seeing. Hope all is okay there.

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  30. What a lot of interesting information, John. I had never given any thought to the smell of burial church yards, - I am presuming this was in the past and the problem doesn't exist today with more advanced corpse handling. I see articles about 'natural' burials among environmentalists, and I wonder if this odour problem would once again be a problem????

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  31. Very interesting post John. I’ve seen high walls around church boundaries, and walked down a few steps inside some but never really given it much thought, until now. The graves in our churchyard are very old and worn, and many of them are leaning over. There is still plenty of room for more although it doesn’t seem to fill up, maybe more people opt for cremation. I’ve always been fascinated by yew trees, possibly because of the Christian/Pagan connection. One started growing in my garden in a previous home, must have been a bird dropping or wind blown, I intended to remove it because it was in a very small front garden, I never did, I wonder if it’s still there! Your photos from your previous post are beautiful.

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  32. A walk with you through the cemetery a is history lesson of our der departed. -- barbara

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