Published in Scotland Magazine Issue 3 on 5/7/2002.

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To that dark inn The Grave

The village churchyard is an accurate map of the common man from years gone by in danger of disappearing. Words and pictures by John Hannavy

The village churchyard seems a quintessentially British creation. It figures strongly in literature, the frequently chosen setting for a variety of
liaisons far removed from those which necessarily took place at the graveside. It has played host to scenes of horror, and romance – both fictional and real. Elegies have been written in it and about it, and it has been, for centuries, the final hallowed resting place of the great and the good – alongside the not-so-great and the not-so-good!

It has played host, in life as well as in death, to those who defined the various faces of Britain, both public and personal. Today, often under overgrown shrubs, surrounded by deep and virtually impenetrable tall grass, lie countless accounts of family histories carved in stone. By chance as well as by design, an intimate picture of a Scotland past is laid before the churchyard explorer. If recently published statistics suggest anything, they show that this delightful aspect of historical research will largely be denied to our successors. Today, over 70 per
cent of all funerals end not at the family tomb in the local churchyard, but at the crematorium.

Future researchers will find out about us not by clearing weeds and mosses away from half-forgotten slabs of stone, but by accessing vast amounts of data on some as-yet-to-be-assembled universal database of births deaths and marriages. It will be a lot cleaner, a lot simpler
and a lot more informative no doubt, but nothing like as interesti.....

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By John Hannavy

Section : Scottish Churchyards

Page number : 52