Filled an hour last week looking around the cemeteries in Stowmarket. I decided go and have another search for my Grandad and Grandma's grave (on Mum's side of family) . My Grandad died in around 1967 and Grandma in 1988 and I know I went to Grandmas burial. In 2017 Col and I went there when we first moved back to Mid Suffolk to look for the grave but despite walking up and down then and again last week I still couldn't find it but I do now have the phone number of someone from the council who has records of where people are buried so will try again sometime.
I had no trouble finding this little grave of the Uncle I never knew as he died in 1949 at aged just 4, six years before I was born. His name was also Colin and he had Leukemia, no treatments for that in those days. When I was little we often walked here from my Grandmas house to put flowers on the grave.
And at the same time we would put flowers on the grave of the Dad I never knew, killed in a motorcycle accident months before I was born.
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The old cemetery is across the road
from the part where my relatives are buried but we used to take a short cut through it on the way to the newer bit. This older part was opened in 1855 but abandoned and closed in 1901 and I'd not been for 60 years at a guess. It's now maintained by the town council as a urban wildlife area. There was no one about when I looked round except several robins and blackbirds
I knew there was one old chapel in the grounds but surprised to find there are two.... wonder why?
More Tomorrow
Sue
Most Victorian cemeteries had 'Mortuary Chapels' for each of the different Christian religions, the one I used to work at had three - CofE, Catholic and Non Conformist (although the Catholic one had been demolished in the sixties as it was in 'disrepair')
ReplyDeleteTwo different denominations. Two chapels. One Anglican, one Non Conformist, not speaking to one another noted by Pevsner, and unusually placed. There is a mass grave somewhere in there for those who died in the Gun Cotton factory explosion in the 1800s.
ReplyDeleteNow you've given away tomorrows post!!
DeleteI am sure you will enlighten us some more about it. I only read it quickly! Sorry. Please go ahead with your post tomorrow!
DeleteSo much history can be found in graveyards which sadly will not be available to future generations as cremation becomes more common...except for those whose ashes are interned in the churchyard afterwards. x
ReplyDeleteCemeteries pull us back into lives long gone, fascinating but gloomy places. I think it is wonderful that you can trace your family through a local cemetery.
ReplyDeleteI've always been able to find these 3 graves but can't find the most recent - I'll try again.
DeleteI went to visit a friend and she took me to the cemetery. Our task was to look for old names that had been forgotten for her book she was writing!
ReplyDeleteI have spent afternoons of many holidays in Devon and Yorkshire, dragging our poor long suffering children round graveyards, when on the family history trail. I still enjoy exploring them. Tam and I had a wonderful summer evening wondering around the huge main Sheffield cemetery, where 87,000 folk were buried. A haven for wildlife now, amongst the angel wings and granite pedestals.
ReplyDeleteThank you Rachel for the mention of the Gun Cotton factory explosion - I've just spent a useful 5 minutes reading about it.
You are lucky to have a lot of your family "planted" in the one place. It looks a peaceful spot to wander.
Rachel has given away the subject of tomorrows post! and now you've read about it too. Bother!
DeleteYou still have to do it, I promise I'll wait until then .....
DeleteA branch of my ancestors came from a small village in Oxfordshire and on a visit one day I went to put flowers on some graves. Although I had a photograph of his grave I couldn't find my Great-Grandfather, so when I got home I wrote to the vicar of the church which became very fruitful for me. The vicar's wife wrote to me and also passed my name onto a local lady who was doing a history of the village. She sent me pictures and information not only on the village but also my ancestors. I would never have got any of these details from anywhere else and I was over the moon. Made my ancestors more human.
ReplyDeleteI've made a couple of trips to a particular cemetery in Lincolnshire and have been quite surprised by how well preserved the headstones of one branch of ancestors are, and the strange stories that further investigation reveals - some striking stories that my great grandparents must have known but which didn't pass down in the family, possibly deliberately.
ReplyDeleteI find cemeteries the most beautiful of places, there is often a calmness and serenity you don't find in the hustle and bustle of day to day living.
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite things is to walk through very old cemeteries. The cemetery that my little grandson is buried is is a very old one, (by our standards) with graves going back to the late 1700s. There is something very moving to me about standing next to the graves of children who died in centuries past, and know that there were those who stood at those graves and thought that their own hearts would break...yet they didn't. It's how life works, isn't it? I don't know why these thoughts comfort me, but as I walk back up to Keegan's spot, I know that I am connected with a long line of people who grieved in their season.
ReplyDeleteI do have to ask though. That curbing around the graves? That is something I've seen a few times over here. It's not common in my part of the world. What is that called, and was it purely decorative, or was there a purpose to it? Looking forward to tomorrow's post.
Most older graves are marked with the curb boundaries, I guess it was to enclose that persons space. Now more often it's just a headstone and the ground settles back to level so it can be kept cut
DeleteI haven't heard of the Gun Cotton Factory explosion, and I won't Google it, so please write about it tomorrow. I'll look forward to it. xx
ReplyDeleteI have always loved looking around old graveyards and find them very peaceful places, I am almost jealous of John Gray living right next door to one, and it is a lovely one too.
ReplyDeleteDid you tidy up the grave in the top photo? I would have been giving it a bit of a weeding session, I can never leave a family members grave looking unkept.
I find old cemeteries fascinating and I love to walk through them. I hope you will be able to find your grandparents graves with the help of the person with the records. I'm looking forward to your post tomorrow!
ReplyDeleteThere is so much history in a cemetery, it is quite fascinating wandering around them. Am looking forward to your story tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy going through old cemeteries and looking for relatives. It is a kind of connection for me for past days.
ReplyDeleteGod bless.
I've enjoyed your post. There is a cemetery in North East Derbyshire where many of my mother's side of the family are buried plus my father who died of leukemia in 1955 when I was five years old. There are two great-grandmothers, a great grandfather, grandad and grandma plus my Mum's little brother and my father's little sister who died as infants. It is somehow reassuring that they are all there:)
ReplyDelete