I’m doing my family tree and have found a few ancestors’ graves in our local cemetery , and as Pixie said, there are so many graves where young children are buried, probably died from illnesses like diphtheria that would wipe out a whole family, so sad
2 Likes
I love old churches. I like the architecture, and the engineering challenges it took to build them. I think, how did men with nothing more powerful than a horse build something this massive?
I love the history contained within and without, both local and national.
When there were problems with the tower of York Minster, engineers dug down at each corner in turn to stabilise it with reinforced concrete and massive threaded steel rods. In the process they found part of a Roman fort and roads.
Gravestones often tell a story. In the tiny village churchyard where my grandmother is buried, there is a row of small gravestones with names of children who all died the same year, presumably from the same disease or disaster.
Some of the stones have spelling mistakes where a letter has been missed out, then added above the word with a little arrow beneath,
This was thought to have been caused by the stonemason being illiterate, and was simply copying squiggles that were otherwise meaningless, then had to add in the missing squiggle when it was spotted as it would have been too expensive and time consuming to carve another headstone.
When the church I got married in sent five of its six bells to be retuned, there was an open day. My Lovely Cousin and I got a tour of the church, the chance to buy the best (fig, date, and orange) home made chutney I had ever had, a history of how bells are rung European style (hanging down), or UK style, (up and over), and a go at bell ringing in both styles.
We also learned how dangerous bells can be, sometimes resulting in fatalities if a ringer gets entangled in a rope, gets dragged high up into the air and then falls.
By law, bells have to be left hanging down when not in use, then have to be “worked up” until they can be rung over the top. There are special licences for a couple of bells in the country that are so big and heavy that they are permitted to be left upside down because they take two hours or more, and two bell ringers, to get them upside down, then the same to make them safe again.
Any bell that kills someone becomes the property of the crown.
If you are interested, the sixth bell was the original and so old that it had a preservation order, so it was only sent for cleaning.
We also got a cuppa and biccies. We were charge 50p each, and both thought it was well worth the vast outlay.
Gargoyles are fancy waterspouts, decorated functional objects.
Down here in deepest, darkest Zumerset some of our churches have Hunky Punks. Their function is purely to ward off evil spirits. I would guess this is a throwback to keep the local Pagans and Wiccans happy by incorporating the old beliefs into the new ones.
6 Likes
not so keen on the more modern and wooden built churches ; I suppose I’m a norman personally?
great story fruitcake and true too!
Very interesting, thanks. I wasn’t aware of some of this.
Do you happen to know which these two particular bells are?
Here’s my contribution. Liverpool Cathedral. The heaviest ring of bells in the country, all ‘standing’. I assume that the ringing chamber is locked and the ropes tied up to prevent accidents.
1 Like
Reykjavik, Iceland
2 Likes
Harbal that church on your opening post is uncanny.
For a moment I thought you’d posted a picture of an old church near me, built in the 1780’s, very Gothic, very atmospheric in it’s towers and old stonework … except the graveyard is rather more overgrown and has considerably more residents.
I love it. The atmosphere is peaceful, quiet … with squirrels scampering around here and there.
I regularly go and sit on a bench there and feed them peanuts. I kinda like the company . You can enjoy a companionable silence.
Another graveyard nearby has a local witch buried in it … Molly Leigh.
Died before she was tried but her ghost was reputed to haunt the locality so they exhumed her, reburied her facing North/south at right angles to all the other graves and chucked in the living blackbird that was supposed to be her companion/familiar.
Don’t ask me how they could identify the blackbird from all the other ones.
The grass had not long since been cut when I took the picture, which makes it look too tidy for my liking. There were squirrels scampering about in this graveward, too. This one is quite hard to spot; it’s the same colour as the stone. 
1 Like
It’s possible, or they may have all been worked up ready for ringing, and would then be rung down again to the “safe” position.
Alternatively I may have been misinformed, or possibly it only applies to bells above a certain weight.
That’s an impressive phot whatever the answer.
This Cemetery in Bristol opened in 1839, two years into the reign of Queen Victoria.
It is set within 45 acres of woodland and has 50,000 plus graves.
3 Likes
I wonder who lives in the old trunk with the little ladder outside the door?
Lilliputians? The Borrowers? Domesticated mice?
1 Like
It makes you wonder doesn’t it Morty 
Actually many of the local school children have regular trips here as this ancient graveyard is part of their school curiculum. It’s not uncommon to see the youngsters weaving their way through the trees with their clipboards making notes. 
Sounds great fun … we never did anything like that when I was a kid.
We did go into woods to catch fruit flies for Environmental Science, by the age old method of sucking them up in a tube … only to discover, when we all got mouthfuls of live insects that someone had removed the filters from inside.
1 Like
Yuk! 
Looks nice and old … some of them gravestones look a little decrepit.
I always wonder who is liable for the maintenance of them.
It’s one of those funny things you never really think about. Grave maintenance and public liability.
That’s ok. We all are allowed our personal preferences.
I don’t understand the ‘Norman personally’ part.
Oh, I’m not sure about that. I get the impression that they’re kept standing under normal circumstances.
Incidentally, some may not have initially notice the bourdon bell hanging in the middle of the circle of ringing bells, which of course only chimes and cannot be ‘rung up’. I think that probably applies to all the heaviest bells.