IHS
St.
Michael's
graveyard surrounds the church and is the first of three burial
sites to be put on the village website.
Whilst the original aim was to record just the grave inscriptions
belonging to St.Michael's, the project was widened to include
those in the small graveyard adjacent to the former Methodist
Chapel in Post Office Road (now a private residence). It is hoped
this will give additional assistance to those wishing to trace
family memorials or histories involving Inkpen.
The records are presented in three documents, one for each
graveyard. Those able to visit St. Michael's church to locate
graves will find maps of the three locations (together with those
records in printed form) which will aid location of particular
graves.
Our graveyards can be very tranquil places but time, weather,
vegetation, chemicals, type of masonry, earth movement and humans
(intentionally or not) all take their toll, some headstones faring
better than others.
Gravestones can provide such information as names,relationships,
occupations, causes of death, place of abode,ages, lifespans and
local stonemasons. Some have intricate decorations, others are
more simple in wording and style so it is important that this part
of our local heritage is recorded before the information or even
the stones themselves disappear for ever. With the recent interest
in researching family history they provide a tangible link with
the past.
We have aimed to provide a written record of as much information
as possible as it stood at that moment in time. The headstones,
foot stones and surrounds have been treated with care to avoid any
further damage and all resting places treated with respect. We
were aware that there are numerous unmarked graves and even more
that surround the church and are barely visible. At present,
Spring 2012, both the new graveyard and the Methodist sites have
been recorded and are being prepared to put on the village
website.
The maps are for identification purposes only and is not as
accurate as a formal survey but we have done our best.
The burial index where mentioned for St. Michael's churchyard, is
the Berkshire Burial Index (St. Michael's Inkpen), as published by
the Berkshire Family History Society, and has been of great help.
If used to add text where it is unclear this has been attributed.
The table below contains the pdf files of the grave details
followed by the corresponding map. To view these, just click on
the item in the table. You will require a pdf reader such as Adobe
Acrobat Reader. These are freely available from the internet.
(Inkpen birth, marriage and burial data for the period
c1607 to 1836 is also available on the archive page.
|
Graveyard |
Graveyard Plans |
|
Christ's Church |
No Plan available |
|
Christ's Church (current) |
Note
1. Inscriptions contain square brackets [ ] where the text is
either missing or unclear.
2. Forward slash / denotes start of a new line.
3. Measurements are for identification only.
Before beginning this project permission was given from
appropriate sources. Prior to undertaking any research (beyond
looking and note taking) in any graveyard be sure to obtain
permission and take the utmost care to prevent any further damage.