Bromley Borough Churchyards
Politician-turned-writer Roy Hattersley admits that he can never walk through a churchyard without wanting to stop and inspect the words on some of the gravestones. Churchyards assuredly can be fascinating places to linger in quiet solitude allowing the imagination to ponder the families and people whose names are commemorated there. There is sometimes a Biblical or poetic quotation on a tombstone; or sometimes an absorbing snippet of information that permits a glimpse of the person’s lifestyle and achievements.
From the pen of the mighty Charles Dickens let us remember that young Pip in Great Expectations was enthralled by the wording of his parents' epitaphs that he saw on their gravestones: he even fancied that from the style of the lettering he could form a picture of their faces and personalities. [Screenshot above]
Politician-turned-writer Roy Hattersley admits that he can never walk through a churchyard without wanting to stop and inspect the words on some of the gravestones. Churchyards assuredly can be fascinating places to linger in quiet solitude allowing the imagination to ponder the families and people whose names are commemorated there. There is sometimes a Biblical or poetic quotation on a tombstone; or sometimes an absorbing snippet of information that permits a glimpse of the person’s lifestyle and achievements.
From the pen of the mighty Charles Dickens let us remember that young Pip in Great Expectations was enthralled by the wording of his parents' epitaphs that he saw on their gravestones: he even fancied that from the style of the lettering he could form a picture of their faces and personalities. [Screenshot above]
What are the enticing stories and secrets to be found in the churchyards in our own environs of Bromley? World War One graves abound at all our local churches: the author John Pateman has made a special study and has published an interesting booklet about the Commonwealth war heroes who are buried at All Saints Church in Orpington. [Photo, above] Walk past this burial ground at any time of year and you’ll always find it tidily maintained and manicured: in Canadian Corner the 116 occupants are Canadian soldiers, connected to the Ontario Military Hospital that opened in Orpington in 1916.
If it is mystery and romance that you're looking for, how about visiting St Giles the Abbot in Farnborough to check out the gravestone of the famous Gipsy Chief and the Gipsy Queen. Even their names alone – Levi and Urania Boswell – stir the imagination, surely, to hint that colourful tales and songs of Romany folklore are buried in the earth beneath the stone inscription that tells us Levi died in 1924, followed by his wife the famous Gipsy Lee aged 81 in 1933. They kept horses on Tugmutton Common, site of the present-day Farnborough Hospital, and the Gipsy Queen lived in the nearby evocatively-named Willow Walk.
Kent-based author Phil Paine came up with the witty title Innings Complete for his series of small books that identify the last resting places of famous cricketers and the often fascinating stories that go with them. They don't come much more famous, of course, than the legendary W.G. Grace whose tombstone can be found at Beckenham Crematorium. Scorer of more than 50,000 runs in first-class cricket the venerable Doctor feared neither fast nor spin bowlers; in his dotage though he hated the German bombs that fell near his house in Mottingham, marked with a blue plaque, where he died in 1915.
If it is mystery and romance that you're looking for, how about visiting St Giles the Abbot in Farnborough to check out the gravestone of the famous Gipsy Chief and the Gipsy Queen. Even their names alone – Levi and Urania Boswell – stir the imagination, surely, to hint that colourful tales and songs of Romany folklore are buried in the earth beneath the stone inscription that tells us Levi died in 1924, followed by his wife the famous Gipsy Lee aged 81 in 1933. They kept horses on Tugmutton Common, site of the present-day Farnborough Hospital, and the Gipsy Queen lived in the nearby evocatively-named Willow Walk.
Kent-based author Phil Paine came up with the witty title Innings Complete for his series of small books that identify the last resting places of famous cricketers and the often fascinating stories that go with them. They don't come much more famous, of course, than the legendary W.G. Grace whose tombstone can be found at Beckenham Crematorium. Scorer of more than 50,000 runs in first-class cricket the venerable Doctor feared neither fast nor spin bowlers; in his dotage though he hated the German bombs that fell near his house in Mottingham, marked with a blue plaque, where he died in 1915.
Visitors to the village of Downe will have to accept that the body of its most famous resident Charles Darwin lies twelve miles away (as the crow flies) in Westminster Abbey: there is however in the churchyard of St Mary-the-Virgin a sundial that is dedicated to Darwin, while other members of the family are commemorated on tablets nearby . And it might be substantial consolation to see inside the church the magnificent marble tombstone that preserves a memory of a much earlier and also remarkable family that lived in Downe. Jacob Verzellini from Venice settled there and bestowed upon the community the rich proceeds of his glass-making industry. His factory was sited at Crutched Friars, an area of the City of London where other street names like The Minories have religious connections. Jacob and his wife Elizabeth (from Antwerp) were interred at Downe after their deaths in 1606 and 1607.
On a political note - let's remember that Roy Hattersley was Deputy Leaderof the Labour Party - there are inscriptions in the church at Knockholt to commemorate Sir Waldron Smithers who was MP for Chislehurst, and afterwards Orpington, between the years 1924 to 1954. He and his wife Lady Marjorie were residents of the village: they were devoted worshippers at St Katharines and Sir Waldron was the church organist, too. We must assume that their devotion to their vicar was not as rebellious as that of parishioner Alfred Peppercorn in days of yore who objected so strongly to long sermons that he built a rival chapel at Three Horseshoes Green; another member of the congregation made his point every Sunday by placing half-a-crown, a shilling and a sixpence for the collection on the pew before the sermon started: after ten minutes he removed the half crown, after fifteen the shilling and after twenty minutes the sixpence!
This article by Jerry Dowlen was first published in Bromley Life magazine in 2013.
This article by Jerry Dowlen was first published in Bromley Life magazine in 2013.