Winteringham Churchyard
Monumental Inscriptions

Winteringham Local History and Genealogy at winteringham.info

For Monumental Transcriptions for each part of the Churchyard, please click the section below:


	Monumental Inscriptions © Chris Knowles 2006

MONUMENTAL & OTHER INSCRIPTIONS
in
All Saints' Churchyard
Winteringham, Lincolnshire

FOREWORD
About 2004 I started a project to transcribe all the inscriptions on the graves and other monuments in and around Winteringham church. This is not the first time this task has been undertaken but I was aware that by making repeated visits in different lighting conditions and by comparing results with other sources of information, including previous transcriptions, a local resident should be able produce a more complete and accurate version than could be achieved by a series of quick visits which concentrated mainly on the recording the main facts which are of value to the family historian. I have therefore found myself going down to the church on numerous odd occasions and often returning with only a couple of records to add to the slowly growing number assembled on my computer. This work is still some way from being completed but I have now finished the main work on the old part of the churchyard and this seems a good time to start making it available for the use of others.

Apart from a tenuous connection by marriage with the Waddinghams, I have no family connections with Winteringham. However I have been working on the history of my own family (spasmodically - like many of my other activities) for over thirty years. In that quest I have benefited hugely in recent years from genealogical information now available on the internet, some of which is available free of charge or at modest cost. By offering the results of my own work in the village to the Winteringham website I hope I am in a small way repaying the kind service provided to me by others in the past as well as making a modest contribution towards the growth of genealogical information freely available in this form.

There are now many websites which provide family historians with easily available materials for their own researches. All are different but there is one which I think is outstanding. When working on the history of my mother's family in Derbyshire I have made extensive use of John Palmer's "One Place Study" of Wirksworth which can be seen at www.wirksworth.org.uk. Here are vast amounts of information concerning the town of Wirksworth and extending to the surrounding villages which only the most dedicated family historian would ever get access to by other means during a single lifetime. If this example could be spread to other areas we would be rich indeed! Row of Gravestones, Winteringham Church

Chris Knowles,
Winteringham, Lincolnshire

INTRODUCTION
The yard surrounding Winteringham church is not especially large, being approximately ... acres in area including the comparatively modern extension to the west of the original enclosure. It would appear that at the beginning of the twentieth century it was seen necessary to enlarge the area available for burials and part of the field west of the church and north of the rectory garden was enclosed for use as an extension to the churchyard. The Winteringham register of burials records that the new plot was consecrated on 18th February 1913 but that the first burial did not take place there until the following January.

The churchyard has the advantage of not having been seriously "tidied" in modern times and a wealth of eighteenth and nineteenth century memorials remains. Although control of the vegetation surrounding the irregularly placed and leaning monuments is less easy than it would be if the gravestones had been cleared away, there is pleasure and much information to be gained from a churchyard which has largely retained its traditional character. That said, a small number of headstones appear to have been taken up or fallen down in the past and are now found propped loosely in various parts of the churchyard. Some kerbs have also been taken up.

A small proportion of the headstones and at least two inscribed kerbs are no longer in the ground and are to be found leaning against walls or other headstones. A similarly small number of in situ memorials have inscriptions which are now so weathered as to be almost, or completely illegible. Otherwise it was found that a surprising number of memorials at Winteringham retain inscriptions which are completely readable, or almost so. In a number of instances transcriptions from the monuments have been checked against other records in the church, a process which has revealed some interesting discrepancies in a few instances. This process is ongoing and it is my hope to update and add to the following list as work continues.

NOTES ON THE TRANSCRIPTION

Inscriptions are transcribed using the original spelling, but with lower case letters and conventional use of capitals.

Roman typeface has been used for the transcribed monumental inscriptions, italics for the epitaphs and descriptions of other features of the monument.

Punctuation appears in the transcript where it occurs in the inscriptions but, in many instances, the punctuation used by the mason has been converted into normal, current usage. Many monuments for example employ stops where we would use commas and I have taken the liberty of making that conversion in the transcription.

Oblique strokes indicate the end of each line of inscription.

Personal names have been put into bold type for emphasis.

Curly brackets { } have been used to distinguish those parts of the inscriptions which are now missing or illegible but for which the original text may be deduced by the context. The same brackets have been placed around descriptions of carved motifs within the area of the inscription.

Readings contained within square brackets have been determined by reference to sources such as the Winteringham burial registers and a record of the inscriptions made in 1990.

Round brackets indicate the use of brackets in the original inscription.

Some memorials carry the name of the monumental mason who carved them. Masons' names are usually found inscribed on the edges or near the bases of some of the monuments; when they have been found, such names are recorded here after a brief description of the monument itself.

Please be aware that, although my aim is to be complete and accurate in every respect, I realise that I am as capable as anyone of making errors and omissions. I should be very grateful therefore to learn of any improvements or corrections which could be made so that the transcripts are of greater benefit to others.

SECTION A: Between Meggitt Lane and the east wall of the chancel; starting from the east and following the rows from south to north.

SECTION B: South of the church and north of the path; starting at the east end of the chancel, following rows from south to north, and ending at the church porch

SECTION C: South of the main pathway to the church porch, starting from the east

SECTION D: West of the path to the church from the former rectory and south of the route to the churchyard extension, starting from the east

SECTION E: North of the church beginning at a line running north from the east end of the chancel and continuing west to a line running north from the west face of the tower.

SECTION F: North of the path from the church porch to the churchyard extension, starting on the west side of the porch and including the area to the west of the church tower

Index to the Monumental Inscriptions


	The letters and numbers at the right of each name indicate the Section, and the number of the memorial in this survey. Hence, for Hannah Allison, go to the page named “Section D” and find memorial number 175 on that page, or double click on the name.