BROADSTAIRS.
St. Peter’s, the village where the mother-church of Broadstairs is situated, is a mile and a quarter in the hinterland, with tramcars whirling all round it.
“In the pretty rural churchyard of St. Peter’s,” I read, “is a headstone to mark the last resting-place of Richard Joy, the ‘Kentish Samson.’”
Now the churchyard of St. Peter’s, pretty though it may be, is so little rural that houses numerously and intimately look upon it; and the pathway through the very forest of tombstones it contains is asphalted and strictly railed in. Fortunately, however, for those interested in this mortuary way, Richard Joy’s tombstone adjoins the path, and his epitaph, surmounted by representations of thoughtful-looking cherubs and a couple of trumpets, is distinctly to be read from it.
Thus you may read:
In Memory of Mr. Richard Joy
(call’d the Kentish Samson) who
Died May 18th 1742, Aged 67
“Herculean Hero! Fam’d for Strength
At last Lies here his Breadth & Length.
“See How the Mighty Man is Fall’n!
To Death ye Strong & Weak are all one.
“And the Same Judgment doth Befall
Goliath Great, as David Small.”