Changing Landscapes in Urban British Churchyards

The first chapter introduces the historical archaeological approach adopted. Background is provided with inputs from historical archaeological frameworks as well as a cross-temporal approach that employs seriation as a method. The chapter presents the research questions and conceptual framework for the book as well as an outline of its contents. The classic archaeological study by Dethlefsen and Deetz is comparatively introduced alongside other influencing factors on funerary architecture and art, encompassing social, economic, cultural, religious, and spatial aspects.

This chapter denotes the geographic range of headstones situated respectively in urban churchyards and kirkyards in England and Scotland. A key map provides the spatial extent of these chosen locations and sites in this investigation. The study sample encompasses six different locations, with four cities and two towns. Two cities are identified as ‘main’ cities, placing importance on them in relation to the other locations. Two cities are polarly situated, with one being placed inland and the other to the north. Two towns were chosen for their coastal location to widen the perspective of burials for England and Scotland. A totality of 13 parish churchyards or kirkyards from the six chosen locations have been recorded and are delineated in some historical detail.

Details of the east-leaning transect for site sampling in the study spanning England and Scotland are provided in this chapter, detailing the methods deployed in the research. This includes an outline of site and field methods used at the six locations and 13 sites comprised in this study. Outputs for the study are also relayed, entailing digital photographs of each upright headstone and location maps at a scale of 1:500. A database of information has been developed through various site visits since 2006. Inferential statistics are used to define the correlation of headstone dimensions with age at death or year of death.

This chapter focuses on the results for headstone shape as the first geometric property examined. Headstone shape varies according to location, but the pattern of diffusion becomes more difficult to identify at a larger scale. The results indicate that the expected decline in the variation of headstone shapes is not apparent within all sites. Despite this, there are more popular shapes used in England and Scotland across time.

This chapter presents the integrated elements of headstone geometric properties (e.g. height, width, and thickness), and has the potential to incorporate a newly developed scale for capturing social status. In this case, an aspect of the physical record (e.g. headstone dimensions) has social implications and so contributes to a physicocultural approach. This study illustrates the known trend of headstone size increase across time, particularly in the late 19th century. However, the results show a different pattern in England and Scotland, with the latter having two groups of headstone size. One ranging from 9000 cm3 up to 100,000 cm3 and another ranging from 200,000 cm3 to beyond 900,000 cm3.

This chapter presents the range of motifs found in churchyards and kirkyards based on still-upstanding headstones belonging to Anglican and Presbyterian parish sites. A range of motifs were discovered on what are referred to as ‘motifed’ headstones as those headstones that had a legible date of death and contained motifs. Table seriations were produced to convey these findings. Floral motifs were most popular, followed by urn and cross motifs – the cross motif was commonly introduced between 1800 and 1849 in England and Inverness. Motifs of mortality, such as urn, torch, and hourglass, were present in England on legible headstones, but were not evident on motifed headstones in Scotland.

This is the first of three chapters that address inscriptions found on the front panels of erect headstones. In this chapter, introductions are examined. These inscriptions appear towards the top of headstone front panels and often appear in large (ornate) letters. The trends evident for England and Scotland are noted here. Salvationinfluenced introductions, such as ‘Sacred’ and ‘In memory of’, were the most commonly used introductions in Britain, with the former (‘Sacred’) being more popular in England, while the latter (‘In memory of’) common in Scotland. These expressions displayed the changing views of death throughout the 17th and 19th centuries.

This is the second chapter on inscriptions. It will address the relationship of status and font types utilised on headstones in England and Scotland. Based on the results, Scotland favoured the use of more simplified inscriptions (e.g. one font) compared to England, that preferred to use two fonts for commemoration. In fact, English headstones contained a total of four fonts, while in Scotland up to three-font headstones were recorded. The relationship between location and font numbers indicated an extremely strong statistical significance.

This is the final chapter that examines headstone inscriptions, more specifically here, epitaphs. Although epitaphs are a part of inscriptions, they can be classified independently, as they can be regarded as an additional feature. The epitaph is predominantly placed after all inscriptions, designated to a basal location on the headstone, irrespective of height. This chapter will also consider the motif-epitaph progression, which denotes the movement from using motifs to epitaphs in Britain. Statistical analysis indicated that the difference between aspects of date of death and length of epitaph, was extremely statistical significant for England, and also very statistically significant in Scotland. The relationship between the length of the epitaph and headstone is governed by the height of the headstone. Where weathering action affected the legibility of the epitaph, the bag-of-words model and lines approach were used and created, respectively, to augment the existing sample size. The use of longer epitaphs earlier in the 18th to early 19th centuries indicates a salvation influence in the words used on headstones.

In this final chapter, the overall contribution of selected case studies contained in the entire book is considered alongside any potential directions for future studies. This chapter encapsulates the integrated approach and communicates the need for such a sustained interdisciplinary approach within archaeology and heritage conservation.