To my mind the design of gravestones hit a peak in the C18. In the C17, as gravestones grew in popularity, they exhibited a naivety of subject and execution. In the C19 mass production, Gothic influences and grandiosity overwhelmed the original and innovative designs that can still be seen. C20 gravestones are usually more modest, machine-made and make use of too wide a variety of stone. The C18 used a limited palette of (usually local) stone, ornament and lettering. The example above, at St Michael, Walford, Herefordshire, has the typical winged putto head and foliage arranged as a cartouche. Rising damp has obscured the lower lettering, but above it is crisp and shows interesting abbreviations. If you look carefully you can still discern parts of the faint, scratched, guide-lines to keep the lettering level and of the correct height.
photo © T. Boughen Camera: iPhone
