Back to my homeland (part 4)

Days 1-4
Days 5-8
Day 9

Day 9 (continued): Croyland Abbey.  The church of Saints Mary Barthlomew and Guthlac adjoins the ruins of the Abbey. The churchyard is filled with stones - some half buried and many weather-worn and faded.

Click on the pictures for a closer look, and use the back button to return to the blog.

Our mission was to find graves of ancestors and to see the place where great-great-great-grandfather, Joseph Sutton married great-great-great-grandmother, Elizabeth Cherrington.  It was also the place where all their children were Christened.

 This is one of many Cherrington gravestones we found, but it was almost as hard to read in real life as it is now.  It might have been easier to take a rubbing of the stone, but we didn't have paper and crayons to do it with.  This one dates to the early 1700s but the date is hard to make out.

These could be the graves of Elizabeth's parents - my great-great-great-great-grandparents.  But they might not be.  Research that far back isn't easy.  Still it's gratifying to know that they lie still undisturbed.

Entering the church the font is the first thing we see. 

The font in the middle of the floor is several hundred years old, and is almost certainly the one used to Baptise Elizabeth and her children. There is an older font set into the wall, which more resembles a well.

The area around the font is well-lit with natural light from clear glass windows.

There is an ornate screen before the altar which has traces of coloured paint on it.

The ceiling above the quire (or choir) has a depiction of the Green Man.  An ancient Pagan symbol of fertility, commonly found in old English churches.

On the wall, a wooden plaque commemorates the passing of a man, his wife and children, and reminds us of our own mortality.  It is dated 1706.

I was excited to find this on the wall near the altar.

"Beneath this stone lieth 

Interr'd the Body of 

Frans Cherrington, 

Relict of 

Willm Cherrington, 

who died August 1:1787 

Aged LX Years.

Reader stay: it is but just

Thou dost not tread on common Dust:

For underneath this Stone doth lye

One whose Name can never die.

Trace her through all the Series of Life,

You'll find her free from Envy, Hate & Strife."

I believe William and Frances Cherrington are Elizabeth's grandparents, which makes them my great-great-great-great-great-grandparents.  (In case you were wondering, we each have one-hundred-and-twenty-eight of them and I have no idea who the remaining one-hundred-and-twenty-six of them are!)

I have a greater appreciation of some of these old churches nowadays.  I've always enjoyed reading monumental inscriptions, but how much more interesting they become when they are for one's own ancestors.

In the next instalment we'll be heading for the south of England.