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Unusual Epitaphs

These are just a few of the most thought provoking epitaphs that have been found in graveyards throughout the West Country.

In St. Mylor church, near Falmouth, is the gravestone of Joseph Crapp, a shipwright who died on 26th November 1770 aged 43.

Alas friend Joseph

His end was almost sudden

As though a mandate came

Express from Heaven

His foot, it slip and he did fall

Help, help he cries, and that was all.

Daniel Gumb's memorial is in Linkinhorne church. He had a wife and 9 children and lived in a house built under a granite slab near The Cheesewring. He taught himself Mathematics and Euclid so that he could study astronomy. His carvings on the rocks can still be seen today, albeit very faint.

Here I lie by the churchyard door

Here I lie because I'm poor

The further in, the more you pay

But here lie I as warm as they.

In St. Petrock's Churchyard at Lustleigh, Devon is the gravestone of a watchmaker who died in 1802. This is actually a lot longer but I have mislaid the full transcript.

Here lies in horizontal position the outside case of George Routleigh watchmaker,

Wound up, In hope of being taken in hand, By his Maker,

And of being thoroughlye cleaned, repaired, And set agoing,

In the World to come.

This has come from a young man's grave in Cornwall

Weep nor lament, my parents dear,

  Nor be no longer sad.

  The shorter was my time on Earth,

  The fewer sins I had

From Otterham Church, North Cornwall

ABEL MOYSE MEDLAND

Died January 28th 1892 Aged 48

So quick and sudden was my call

I soon was taken from you all

Death does not always warning give

Therefore be careful how you live

In Bampton Churchyard, near Tiverton is a memorial to a child in 1776 that died from an accident with an icicle!!

Bless my iiiiii

Here he lies

In a sad pickle

Killed by icicle.

Something makes me think that it wasn't the parents choice of words.

From a churchyard in Mylor is a memorial stone to a smuggler called Thomas James who on the 7^th December 1814 was on his return to Flushing from St. Mawes in a boat, when he was shot by a Customs House officer and died a few days later.

Officious zeal in luckless hour laid wait

And wilful sent the murderous ball of fate;

James to his home, which late in health he left,

Wounded returned--of life is soon bereft.

More to follow soon