At Winterton, a village not far from Epworth, at the time of the controversy of which mention has been made, the burials on the North side had all taken place within living memory. It was a matter of doubt whether “a dozen gravestones, over fifty years old, could be found in as many parishes in [that] deanery on the North sides of churchyards[880].” Another Lincolnshire village, Springthorpe, had no Northern graves; while, at Saltfleetby All Saints, so recently as 1880, as the present writer can avouch, not a single stone or grave existed on the North side, though monuments were closely crowded on the South side. Dr Alfred Gatty, who was vicar of Ecclesfield, Yorkshire, for more than fifty years, once stated that, in the early nineteenth century, there were practically no interments in the North yard of his church. In the year 1823 a clergyman was buried in that portion, and the evil reputation was banished[881]. Morwenstow, Cornwall, Hawker’s beloved “Daughter of the Rock,” formerly exemplified the same superstition[882]. The prejudice was especially strong in Norfolk[883]. It was also very prevalent in the neighbouring county of Suffolk[884]. At Newbourne, in that county, while the graveyard was filled on the South, East, and West, the turf had long appeared unbroken on the North. “The bishop had never walked on it,” so ran the story, and all endeavours to break down the superstition proved fruitless for many years[885]. In churchyards situated in the Border Counties, on both banks of the Tweed, the prejudice is barely removed even at the time of writing. John Brand (A.D. 1744-1806) discovered that, in his day, the belief still pervaded many “inland and Northern parts,” but had been “eradicated from the vicinity of the metropolis.” He quotes numerous authorities to prove that the prejudice was also rampant in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales[886]. Another eighteenth century writer, none other than Gilbert White, recorded that the Southern side of the churchyard of Selborne had “become such a mass of mortality that no person [could] be there interred without disturbing or displacing the bones of his ancestors.” However, “two or three families of the best repute” had begun to bury on the North side, and White had hoped that, by degrees, the prejudice might wear out[887].
Frequently we encounter evidence which, without directly alluding to the superstition, implies its existence. A curious bequest made at the close of the seventeenth century will serve as an illustration. Archbishop Tenison having presented a burial ground to the parish of Lambeth, it was deemed necessary, in order to lessen the number of Southern interments, to charge double fees for that portion of the yard[888].
Additional testimony, though inconclusive, is gleaned from an examination of the position of the fabric with respect to the churchyard. As already stated, in many instances the North yard is all but non-existent. This is the case at Burnham-on-Crouch, Essex; Caterham and Weybridge, Surrey; Littleton, Middlesex; Barnet, Hertfordshire; North Cockerington, Lincolnshire; Upper Beeding, Falmer, Street, Bishopstone, and West Dean, in Sussex; Manningford Bruce, Bradford-on-Avon, and Amesbury, in Wiltshire. The list could be greatly extended. At the last-named village there were no gravestones in the North yard at the time of my visit in 1901. Mr J. T. Micklethwaite has pointed out that, when an aisle was added to Wakefield parish church during the twelfth century, it was built on the North side, because at that period all the burials were on the South side[889]. One is compelled to regard this line of evidence as only partially satisfactory, not because the instances are insufficiently numerous, but because cases can be cited where the South yard, not the North, is very narrow and insignificant. At Whitchurch, Oxfordshire; Alciston, Sussex; Hatfield Peverel, Essex; and Chertsey, Surrey, the burial ground is cut off almost sheer with the South side of the church. Nevertheless these instances are much fewer than those in which the North yard is so treated, and to this extent the theory stands good.
More satisfactory confirmation of the belief is afforded by the actual disuse of the North graveyard in many parishes. A reference to [Fig. 21] ([p. 77] supra) will show that, a century back, scarcely a headstone was to be seen on the North side of Chislehurst churchyard, yet we know that numerous examples existed on the South side. One may visit village after village and find that the tombstones on the North side are all erections belonging to the last half-century. The writer’s notebook abounds with instances of this kind, but it would serve no purpose to give the catalogue here. Two or three striking examples may, however, be quoted. At Faringdon, or Farington, Hampshire, where Gilbert White was once curate, there is a large strip of graveyard towards the North, yet, on visiting the place in 1899, I found not a single tombstone in that quarter. At Yateley, in the same
Fig. 67. Norham churchyard, Northumberland. North side, showing the undisturbed turf, and absence of tombstones.
county, the Southern area has been enlarged, though the Northern portion was still partly available. Strangest of all was the case of Eversley, which is not far distant from the last-named parish, and which is always associated with the name of Charles Kingsley. Here, at the date just mentioned, an additional plot of burial-ground on the opposite side of the road had been consecrated, yet the Northern part of the old yard remained unfilled. Whatley, in Somerset, had only four graves on the North side in 1910, and all of these were recent. The North yard was, indeed, small, yet it still had accommodation, in spite of which fact the churchyard had evidently been enlarged on the South. Widdicombe, Devonshire, had no Northern tombstones in 1906, and Denton, in Sussex, but one stone on the North side in 1910. In the same year, I found no stones on the North yard proper at Norham, Northumberland; a group of elms occupied the space enclosed by the Northern boundary and an imaginary line continued from the East wall of the church ([Fig. 67]). In 1911, no North stones existed at Ford, Sussex, and Abbotsham and Countisbury, Devon.
A note of warning must now be uttered. The antiquary who is bent on examining this question will doubtless be guided, in the absence of documentary proof and of modern excavations, by two kinds of visible evidence: the level, unbroken condition of the turf, and the age of the tombstones, if these be present. A perfectly even area of turf is, as we shall see, not distinctly conclusive against the existence of former interments, since it may only imply carelessness in the raising, or in the preserving, of any possible grave-mounds. The evidence deduced from tombstones, too, must always be judiciously weighed. The absence, or the modernity, of the monuments is a fair test, if applied only to the period during which such memorials are known to have been erected. But the investigator will be on his guard against giving what Bishop Butler, in fine phrase, termed “an otiose assent.” If the level state of the sward agrees with absence of gravestones, we may infer, either that no burials have taken place, or that they have been of a peculiar and exceptional nature. The wearing down of undisturbed mounds by atmospheric denudation may be left out of consideration, as being an unlikely occurrence.
Speaking generally, the upright headstone and the outdoor altar-tomb go back no farther than the middle of the seventeenth century[890]. It has been surmised that existing churchyard monuments which exhibit an earlier date may have been, in some cases, originally set up inside the building[891]. But genuine outdoor stones are found which belong to the late sixteenth century at least. There are two dwarf headstones on the South side of Branscombe churchyard, Devon, dated 1570 (? 1579) and 1580 respectively[892]. Headstones belonging to the fifteenth century have been recorded from Thrapstone, Northampton; Lavenham, Suffolk; Blyborough and Kirton-in-Lindsey, Lincolnshire; and Loversall, Yorkshire[893]. An allusion to the upright stone occurs in Hamlet: