Ship of Fools: Terrible tombstones

Thread: Terrible tombstones Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

I came across this site yesterday and was struck by the interesting and inventive variety of memorials to the dead.

Anyone got any accounts of similar, or plans to have something distinctive themselves?

Goodbye Kitty

Spongebob Gravestone

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

In the Cof E we don't allow such tombstones - though it comes across as very hard to the mourners.

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

There are other Czech composers buried in the same churchyard, but it is Dvorak gets the works - portrait bust, bas relief, art nouveau gilding, tasteful planting.

Posted by jacobsen (# 14998) on :

It's not exactly in the spirit of this thread, but I like the Jewish custom of laying a pebble on the grave of the dead when you visit them.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

For those who can't see the image Firenze linked to, it looks like this.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

Not a terrible tombstone- in fact IMO rather lovely and one of my favourites. But those who remember the man will appreciate its mild eccentricity. Here.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

Looking at the images linked to the first post it makes one very glad that the CofE has the regulations it does, if only to prevent bad taste.

Of course, there is still the opportunity for mirth in the inscriptions...

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

You can tour Highgate Cemetery and see some crazy-original grave markers. And the number of modern things to do after death is extremely large -- everything from being shot off with fireworks to coral reefs to man-made diamonds to low-earth orbit.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

Spike Milligan once wanted his tombstone to reasd 'I told you I was ill.'

[ 07. June 2016, 14:25: Message edited by: leo ]

Posted by Drifting Star (# 12799) on :

And indeed it does.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

The one I felt very disturbing was in a churchyard at Baunton in the Cotswolds, for a wife, and quoting from Proverbs - 'The Lord chastens those whom he loves.'

Why? What lay behind it? Was it the widower who was being chastened by the loss of his wife? It read to me unfortunately like the idea of someone who believed he should chasten his wife.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Looking at the images linked to the first post it makes one very glad that the CofE has the regulations it does, if only to prevent bad taste.

Trouble is that 'taste' is in the eye of the beholder and the C of E is so middle class that it can't really live up to its claim to be the church for everyone

Posted by M. (# 3291) on :

Not a funny one - the tombstone that always makes me gulp is in my church's graveyard. You can't really see the names any more but the inscription is:

'The dead child and hope of...'

M.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

quote:
Originally posted by leo:

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Looking at the images linked to the first post it makes one very glad that the CofE has the regulations it does, if only to prevent bad taste.
Trouble is that 'taste' is in the eye of the beholder and the C of E is so middle class that it can't really live up to its claim to be the church for everyone

Surely one of the reasons for the CofE's rules on gravestones is to ensure, by requiring a degree of restraint, that the churchyard can be a place for everyone and not risk being taken over by the personal taste of one or two families.

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

From my experience the ones who want alternative tombstones wide of the rule book have, in the past, often not been supporters of the Church.

In this rural area the rules have though been relaxed by individual vicars keen to please the wider community in the face of dwindling congregations. This is more about the colour and finish of stones rather than allowing really tacky memorials into an essentially traditional setting.

Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :

For the record I found many of those tombstones pretty cool. [Cool]

I liked the scrabble and crossword ones; and I liked the black living room one.

Gotta say there were some more fit for a Halloween lawn displays, like that one of grizzly hands lunging at the child playing or the guy with his head in his hands.

Posted by Banner Lady (# 10505) on :

I rather like

This:

Posted by Piglet (# 11803) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Drifting Star:
And indeed it does.

We were in Winchelsea a few years back, and D. and his sister spent ages looking for Mr. Milligan's tombstone because of the "I told you I was ill" epitaph, which I think at the time had been vetoed. If the stone had been moved, that would explain their lack of success.

I rather like the idea behind BL's cookie recipe - haven't we all at some time or another wished we could have access to a recipe that was in Mum's or Granny's head but had never been written down?

[ 08. June 2016, 03:21: Message edited by: Piglet ]

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Banner Lady:
I rather like
This:

Brilliant.

When someone I knew dropped down dead they put his favourite recipe for Moroccan chicken on the back of the service leaflet.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

Game over

.... and on a similar note....

Possibly a little too lifelike, especially at sunset.

Posted by Drifting Star (# 12799) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
Possibly a little too lifelike, especially at sunset.

I think the ones emerging from their headstones behind him would spook me the most at sunset!

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

From the point of view of a geological taste - I prefer stones of a local rock, and find the very shiny crystalline stuff from, I think, South Africa, sticks out badly in country churchyards. (I gather it is usually labelled granite, but it's probably up the basalt end of the igneous spectrum.)

I find I like the Victorian melodramatic ones rather.

[ 08. June 2016, 09:16: Message edited by: Penny S ]

Posted by Helen-Eva (# 15025) on :

I like a gravestone to be made of something nice and robust where the lettering will remain visible for a good long time for the benefit of future family historians. Worn off lettering is maddening.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

Robust, yes, I thought of that while posting. But if the usual stones are a light colour, a light colour would be better than that black.

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

I may nick Capt. Blackadder's idea for mine: "Here lies Karl LB and he's bloody annoyed!"

Anyone in the clergy tries to veto it I'll bloody well haunt them.

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :

In our kirkyard, the gravestone of a woman who died in 1808 includes this verse:

No Pomp's Displayed or Meant by this Plain Stone,
To draw the attention of the Passing Eye,
But the Due Tribute of a Mourning Son,
That Marks where Lies a Mother's Mouldering Clay.

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

I have heard of a tombstone in Aberdeen with a four-line verse. I don't remember the first two, but the last two are:

She was a virgin till seventeen
That's quite a record for Aberdeen

Moo

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :

This is the grave of Elizabeth Charlotte
Born a virgin, died a harlot,
She was still a virgin at seventeen
A remarkable thing in Aberdeen.

I've heard about this gravestone quite often, but it definitely doesn't exist now, and no-one seems to know where it was.

Posted by Sarasa (# 12271) on :

My mother once saw a gravestone that had a woman's names and dates and then the motto 'She did what she could'. It was somewhere in the Warrington area.
I saw a gravestone in (I think) Buckingham that said 'She will be known for what she was.'

Neither of them glowing tributes to the deceased.

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

The moral of this is, preplanning. Decide what you want on your stone, or what you want done with your remains, and write it down. If possible, back up your wishes with money -- you can buy everything in advance if you want. You can set it up with your church, the service you want, the hymns to be sung, the texts -- everything.
Then your witty or malicious heirs have to live with it. They can say irritating things over the grave, but your stone will say what you want.

Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on :

I have purchased a niche in our church's columbarium. Alas, all I will have is a plaque like Emily Loman's (scroll down a bit). The only personalization allowed is that a clergy person gets a small cross.

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Robust, yes, I thought of that while posting. But if the usual stones are a light colour, a light colour would be better than that black.

Problem with light stones can be that engraved letters need reprinting every 10 or 20 years to remain visible from a distance.
Black and dark grey polished stones were not allowed in CofE yards, but like I said they are creeping in. As are the alternative epitaphs. ' Loved to Natter' is one that I noticed recently.

Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
The moral of this is, preplanning. Decide what you want on your stone, or what you want done with your remains, and write it down. If possible, back up your wishes with money -- you can buy everything in advance if you want. You can set it up with your church, the service you want, the hymns to be sung, the texts -- everything.
Then your witty or malicious heirs have to live with it. They can say irritating things over the grave, but your stone will say what you want.

In theory this sounds good.

A woman I taught with put a cartoon of her husband (also a teacher) on his tombstone. I rather liked it because it summed up an aspect of Norm's life well. She told me her stepson didn't approve of it.

The next time I visited the graveyard was after her death. The cartoon had gone and in its place the inscription read, "A gentle man and a troubled woman"

Huia

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

Wow. I hope she disinherited him.

Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :

I would have liked to have done more than that, but it wasn't really my business.

I'm not saying his inscription was inaccurate, but there was a lot more to the woman than that. My youngest brother credits her with teaching him to read after other teachers had put him in the too hard basket (he's dyslexic) and he is far from the only one. It saddens me that this aspect of her life is carved in stone and will be all that some people know of her.

Huia

Posted by Aravis (# 13824) on :

I think it was in Exeter Cathedral where I came across a very lengthy memorial, including the phrase, "Her bosom was the seat of those energies which give activity to virtue."

Posted by Stercus Tauri (# 16668) on :

quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
This is the grave of Elizabeth Charlotte
Born a virgin, died a harlot,
She was still a virgin at seventeen
A remarkable thing in Aberdeen.

I've heard about this gravestone quite often, but it definitely doesn't exist now, and no-one seems to know where it was.

The sentimental style of that one might be taken for William McGonagall. Did he ever subject Aberdeen to his immortal poetic gems?

Posted by Eigon (# 4917) on :

There's one in a graveyard just outside Wrexham with the proclamation: "Prayer works! I know because I tried it!"

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

I am ISO poems, especially old ones, that appear on gravestones, so if anyone knows of a site let me know. Not photographs necessarily but the texts.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

I am very fond of this one which is in the churchyard at Eyam in Derbyshire..

For those that aren't fortunate enough to have grown up familiar with cricket, the batsman is being bowled out middle stump, an obvious metaphor for death, and the hand with the first finger held upwards is how an umpire indicates that one is out. If you cannot distinguish the little poem, it is an extra delight,

"For when that one great Scorer comes
To write against your name
He writes - not that you won or lost
But how you played the game”

Exam is also famous as the plague village in the C17.

In Bath Abbey there is a plaque which includes this immortal advice to the living,
And be not troubled when your friends
Come suddenly un to their ends".

Neither of these, though, fit the title 'terrible tombstones'.

[ 11. June 2016, 22:18: Message edited by: Enoch ]

Posted by Sparrow (# 2458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Piglet:

quote:
Originally posted by Drifting Star:
And indeed it does.
We were in Winchelsea a few years back, and D. and his sister spent ages looking for Mr. Milligan's tombstone because of the "I told you I was ill" epitaph, which I think at the time had been vetoed. If the stone had been moved, that would explain their lack of success.

I was there last week and saw it! There is an inscription in, apparently, Gaelic, which is supposed to be the "I told you I was ill" line.
The stone is in a prominent position in front of the church and has a fairly well worn track through the grass to it, also a leaflet in the church tells you where it is.

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

I believe there's a stone in a churchyard in Co Antrim with 'Memento Mori' on the front - and a handy translation on the back 'Remember to die'.

Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :

I have threatened to have 'She was always trying' engraved on mine....

Given the CofE reluctance to have tailored gravestones, my favourite is to our school governor (a local fruit farmer) known affectionately as The Strawberry King. His family were allowed to have two bright red strawberries carved and painted on his gravestone - very tasteful, but advanced thinking for 30+ years ago.

Posted by Ariston (# 10894) on :

In DC's Congressional Cemetery, there's an especially overwrought piece of Victoriana dedicated to Mary Ann Hall, "long a resident of Washington. With integrity unquestioned a heart ever open to appeals of distress, a charity that was boundless, she is gone; but her memory will be kept green by many who knew her sterling worth."

Integrity unquestioned, hm?

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