Sunday, 6 January 2013

St Mary's Churchyard, Sandbach

 
What you see here at the front of the church is also round the back as well as down from the end of the church.

 
To the left hand side of this photo are the headstone that I have been concentrating on.  After they are all transcribed, a few still need cleaning then I will start on the oldest headstones that are lying down on the right hand side of the path.


As many of you know I have started to transcribe the headstones in St Mary's churchyard, it is going to be a long job to say the least.  the first stint gave me approx. 65 headstones 21 of those needed cleaning.  I was to find that the 21 were more than that a few weeks later.

On Friday I transcribed 45 headstones with ease, the following day I decided I would clean some of the 21 from my first trip........OMG what a job, most were covered in moss like carpet, one took 45 minutes to clean and read.  I ended up with sore fingers, sore back and rather dirty, never seen ingrained soil on my hands for many years never mind the dirty notebook.  Oh yes I found a few extra hidden headstones too, never mind taken a day off to recover just have to hope that the rain stays away.

I will take some photos of the headstones that I have done along with some before and after photos as I progress.  My data base as over 200 names so far.  If anyone wants to help............lol.

First lot of headstones that haven't been cleaned these are some of the ones that I hope to get cleaned tomorrow if the weather is dry.

 










The next set are ones I have already cleaned and transcribed as much as possible.  Of course since they were cleaned the wind has been blowing leaves over them again.  Some of the headstones I have only cleaned where there is writing that I needed to get too.








On the above left photo to the right of the photograph is the broken headstone that took 45 minutes to clean and transcribe, it was in a terrible mess and even now some is still unreadable.

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