Gravestones, Tombs & Memorials (6 page)

FIG 2.13:
The head of the finest 18th-century gravestones was usually arched or had a profile similar to contemporary chair backs and was filled with images of death (skulls) and resurrection (angels).

FIG 2.14:
Double-panelled gravestones for husbands and wives or family members were common up to the early 19th century. Many have a blank side, making you wonder if the other half was not as devoted as the deceased believed!

Early 19th-century Gravestones

In the last decades of the 18th century there was a distinctive shift in the type of symbols and decoration used on memorials. Carving became more delicate and shallow and the old morbid themes of death and time were gradually replaced by Classical imagery. Mourning female figures, weeping trees, full-length angels and urns were popular images which featured on stones; in some cases well into the Victorian period although by then they were generally confined to a smaller section at the top. In the early 19th century the Greek Revival style became influential upon gravestone design. The profile at the top was simplified with either a square, shallow triangle or arch being common forms. Decoration like swags, garlands and draped fabric remained popular and new ones with more geometric forms like Greek key were also used. Large decorated words or phrases like ‘Sacred' and ‘In Memory' were prominent towards the top of many stones and the inscriptions below became more emotional and sentimental.

FIG 2.15:
A distinctive style popular in the first half of the 19th century was the Greek Revival. It was plain and rather austere with rectangular or tapered sides and a simple geometric profile to the top as in these, with a low triangle or pediment. Greek key decoration as in the corners of the lower example was often used.

FIG 2.16:
Cast-iron had been used for gravestones in Kent and in the area around Ironbridge, but in the 19th century small foundries mass produced memorials from simple decorative markers with prongs to full size headstones, as in this example (they would originally have been painted).

FIG 2.17:
Greek Revival headstones with a simple triangular head and bat wing features in the corners of the example below, and a profile replicating that of Ancient Roman and Greek
stelae
in the one above.

FIG 2.18:
Late 18th- and early 19th-century gravestones are often found with delicate carving and fine details in the Adams-style, popular a few decades earlier. In general, memorial styles are often 20 or 30 years out of date reflecting the conservative attitude of local masons away from cities like London and Bath. This example shows some of the new symbols popular in this period like the weeping tree, Hope and her anchor, and the urn.

Victorian Gravestones

The establishing of cemeteries and the rise of an affluent urban middle class in the mid 19th century coincided with great changes in the design of memorials. A reinvigorated clergy inspired by medieval Gothic architecture looked disdainfully upon what they regarded as pagan forms on Georgian gravestones and sought more appropriate styles and images, most notably with the return of the cross as a symbol (it had not been widely used since the Reformation for fear of ‘Popery'). New pattern books with designs by local architects became the reference point for memorials, with Gothic arched slabs, altar tombs, coped stones and the Celtic cross prominent. However, the often uneducated middle classes preferred something more dramatic and between the ranks of elegant lancet-shaped gravestones appeared weeping angels, rustic crosses, anchors, towering obelisks and columns.

FIG 2.19:
A selection of Victorian gravestones showing the wide variety of shapes available, although the lancet appears to be the most popular. There was often a small circular or triangular feature in the top section, containing a single weeping figure, a cross or foliage.

These elaborate gravemarkers became more affordable as the funeral business introduced new production techniques with prefabrication of stones and machine-cut lettering, often filled with lead inserts. Although the clergy frequently stipulated the use of local stone, cheaper imported marble from Italy, where it was sculptured near to the quarries before export, became a prominent feature in cemeteries and some churchyards. Mass production and village reorganisation as enclosure acts condensed the land into the hands of a smaller number of richer farmers, with the local gentry preferring to use their own architects to design memorials, combined to cripple the small-scale local mason and many went out of business in this period.

FIG 2.20:
A distinctive feature of Victorian memorials is the use of contrasting stones in a single gravestone or tomb. In this example, marble and polished granite have been inserted into the carved stone framework.

FIG 2.21:
A Gothic-style gravestone (with a pointed arch similar to that used in 13th-century lancet windows) with labels of some features which were common on Victorian memorials.