THE TOMBSTONE PROJECT

The aim of this project is to photographically record all the memorials in All Saints Churchyard and put them on the web site. The project has been triggered by remarks made in the Warden's Page in June 2004, reproduced below :

"Although at this time of the year the sap is rising and the days noticeably lengthening I still hear people saying where has the day gone! Perhaps I am near to leaving that age zone where the flesh is willing but the spirit is weak and heading for the converse! Such were my thoughts when challenged by the sight of All Saints Churchyard the other day. We will have to consider and act to meet the matter of future maintenance. As you know the churchyard is closed for burials and so one can expect little disturbance in the future to the ground itself. Judging from expenditure to date a sum of approximately �2000 per annum is the minimum we will have to spend to just keep it in a tidy state. If however we stand back and take a longer-term view of the problem, have the ground levelled, and paths laid, this will ensure that the churchyard becomes more manageable at lower cost in terms of time and money. If this is achieved we will also be able to ensure that only appropriate memorials are maintained."

Fortunately action such as suggested above will probably take a little while to come to fruition, as the alteration to memorials is a delicate task where many people have to be contacted, on a very sensitive issue. Then there are the enquiries to make sure there are no interested living relatives, and so on. Nevertheless a start needs to be made now.

Details of how many memorials there are at All Saints is not to hand, nor the dates of the oldest memorials but some idea of the magnitude of the task is portrayed below.

89 pictures have been taken so far. The pictures were taken with a 5 megapixel compact camera on a bright sunny day, the sun shining on the reverse of the headstone in nearly all cases. As can be seen

the camera is not up to the job
the (evening) sun is the wrong time of day, morning is best
bright diffused light (sun peeping through clouds) makes best results
the old uncared for stones are a challenge to say the least
there are a lot of photographs to be taken.

Whilst all the memorials will be photographed with the camera used above what is really required is

a knowledgeable photographer
with a digital camera of at least 5 megapixel
with the time at his disposal
with the equipment necessary to capture the detail in the worst cases
with the willingness to do it all for nothing

If there is such a person would they please make contact using the talk2me email link on the home page. Full credits will of course be given for all pictures taken.

If you wish to make any comment, provide historical information or any sort of contribution to this project please use the talk2me email link on the home page. Once the photography has been finalised, initially in its "rough" form, the results will be put on a web page. The format is yet to be decided but it will be along the lines of thumbnails (small pictures) with the opportunity to specifically download the full size picture on request. The full size picture can be as much as 1.1 Mbytes.

Brigadier Jephson Jones

An enquiry from the George Cross database underlines how important it is to have a record of the churchyard, as the stones will weather whilst the photographs will not. A thumbnail biography of the Brigadier appears in the database together with photographs of his grave. Who knows what other artifacts should be specially recorded in this way on our web site.