Morbid Fascination

I thought that you might let me get away with a post about a graveyard - being as it is almost the season of Halloween.

On Tuesday, after work, I stopped off for a wander around the graveyard at the old church in Wentworth.

Some of the graves in here are from as early as 1641. Many belong to ordinary village people from Wentworth and nearby villages of Hoyland, Elsecar, Harley and Thorpe Hesley.

As I have mentioned before, the church is maintained, but no longer used. The newer church lies across the path. No one leaves flowers here anymore, in stark contrast to the newer graveyard, but I think it looks better without flowers.

The Marquis of Rockingham and Earls of Fitzwilliam and Strafford have their Crypt here too. The Crypt is accesible from inside the church on open days.

I went armed with a few old leaflets I have which tell the story of some of the inhabitants. Hurray for local historians! It made me realise how essential graveyards are for piecing together local history.

There are a few graves that tell tragic tales - this one tells of the drowning of a young lad in the newly built reservoir that was built to feed the canal that would carry coal dug from the local mine. This would have cast a big shadow on the progress of new transport links I suppose.

And this one tells the very unusual tale of a young chinese boy that was brought back by a Captain Foster - an English merchant of whom little is known. No one really knows why or how the young chinese boy aged around 10 years old found himself in Yorkshire transported from China in 1843. However it was widely known that the Fitzwilliam family were a charitable bunch - the locals still talk about them fondly to this day. It appears that they educated him well, but sadly he died in his late teens.

What prompted my visit, was watching the excellent Sunday evening series Downton Abbey. The head housekeeper was talking to the butler and saying how she often wished she had chosen a different path - working in a factory or something similar. This would have meant that she stood a chance of marrying and having a family, whereas Housekeepers rarely did. I remembered that the grave yard contains the graves of many staff from Wentworth Woodhouse - including 2 of its head Housekeepers.

Their graves were paid for by the estate - which I suppose didn't happen every where. I wonder if Hannah (died 1769) and Margaret(died 1843) would have been amused to know that they would be featured on the internet hundreds of years after their death!

Dairy men, stable hands and even village shop keepers are honoured in the grave yard.

And finally, how about this as a prop at your Halloween party - very spooky indeed! I must admit, it had me on edge.