West Bridgford
St Giles

Churchyard

The churchyard is rectangular in shape with the church located to the north. The terrier of 1809 gave the area of the churchyard as 1a 0r 27p. This is consistent with the current site, including the church and modern church hall. The churchyard is only slightly wider, east to west, than the extended church building, and the space to the north of the church is essentially filled by the church hall. The graveyard is at the south of the church, running southwards for around 160 feet at the west and 225 feet at the east.

We have a description by Barker around 1835:

'The burial ground is very low and swampy, and, indeed, the anomaly of a watery grave in a village churchyard is here fully confirmed. A drain runs through it. The memorials of the dead are not very numerous, but they are thickly clustered together.'

Gates near the
south door		 The south entrance to
the churchyard

At the present time, there are wrought iron railings to the north of the church, continuing westwards down to the south-west corner of the churchyard. The gates near the south door of the church were replaced in 1992 and were in memory of William (Bill) G Skinner.

A stone wall forms the southern boundary. By the end of 1901, it was in poor repair and the Church Council entered into negotiations with the West Bridgford Urban District Council on its repair. The Church Council resolved to put in oak gates and make electrical connections so that a lamp could be placed on either or both of the gate pillars.

The eastern boundary, working northwards, is formed by the cottages (owned by the church as the Croft Estate and the oldest dwellings in West Bridgford), a hedge by the new rectory, and wooden fence by other houses.

The churchyard in
the 1950s		 1963 plan

In 1951, a faculty was granted to level all neglected graves and remove unsafe gravestones to the boundary. The photograph, used on the cover of the parish magazine in the 1950s, shows the abundance of headstones remaining.

A further programme of moving gravestones and laying others down was embarked upon in 1963. As part of this programme, a plan was drawn-up to show the existing location of gravestones before the work commenced.

 

The eastern section
of the churchyard		 The western section
of the churchyard

Today, there are comparatively few gravestones remaining in the churchyard.

In 1983, a faculty was granted to set aside an eastern part of the churchyard for the interment of cremated remains, with the proviso that 'there would be no visible markings of any interment'. A plaque was placed nearby on the church wall in 1997:

GARDEN OF REMEMBRANCE
INTERRED HERE ARE THE ASHES OF THOSE
WHOSE NAMES APPEAR IN THE
BOOK OF REMEMBRANCE
HELD IN THE CHURCH

At this time, it was stated that the last recorded burial was in 1959 and the Department of Environment confirmed they had no records of any Order discontinuing burials in the churchyard. In fact, the church had applied for an Order in Council to close the churchyard to burials in 1962, in the hope that the borough council would then take on responsibility for cutting the grass. However, the council refused to support the application. The borough council assessed the area of the churchyard as 3,215 square yards: two-thirds covered with gravestones and monuments, the other one-third grassed.

Memorial Benches

There are four wooden benches in the churchyard.

Faith Severn

The carved inscription reads:

IN MEMORY OF FAITH SEVERN 1937-1991

Faith was the wife of John Severn who started the Southwell and Nottingham Church History Project.

Stanley and Tricia Ellwood

There are two bronze plaques:

In Memory of
Stanley Ellwood
Father of Tricia
9th September 1916 - 26th July 2009

and

In Loving Memory of
Tricia Ellwood
14th June 1947 - 15th March 2001

Michael Waring

A brass plate reads:

IN LOVING MEMORY OF
MICHAEL JOHN WARING
4.10.37 – 23.2.96

Stephen Ellis

Carved on the backrest is

Stephen Derek Kingscote Ellis 1953 – 2015

and, on the seat

Gerrie ter Haar

Grave-Markers

Grave marker
to Robert Clerk

When the graveyard was mapped in 1963, a list was made of the grave-markers and cross-referenced to the plan. An earlier list of epitaphs, compiled by Phillimore, was published in 1877. In both lists, the earliest entry was for Robert Clerk who died in 1705. This is a slate headstone of the kind known as 'Belvoir angels'and is to be found at the west side of the south porch.

There is a verse on the gravestone:

You readers all both old & young
Your time on earth will not be long
For death will come & die you must
And like me return to dust

The mason must have miscalculated his spacing, as the word 'long' had to be inserted above the rest of the line.

A grave-marker inside the ancient chancel records those graves lost as a result of the church extension.

When Throsby visited at the end of the 18th century, he found a gravestone for John Billings, who had died in 1785 at age 82, near the church door. This does not seem to have survived. It bore the inscription: 'He fell like Autumn Fruit, that mellowed long, Much wondered at because he dropt no sooner. Fate wound him up for three score Years and ten; Yet freshly run he on some Winters more, Till like a Clock, worn out with beating time, The Wheels of weary Life, at length, stood still.'

The most noticeable grave marker now is formed by the yew tree and kerb stones by the south porch. It marks the graves of the Heymann family who lived in Bridgford Hall.

There is a headstone erected by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in 1974, which reads '2952 Rifleman A.C. Lacey King's Royal Rifle Corps 10th October 1915 Age 20'.