This was another of our planned stops for local exploration on last month's trip.
If you want people to be able to read your gravestone centuries after you've gone, then perhaps you should go for slate.
The lettering looks as sharp today as it must have done 175 years ago when, presumably, the inscription commemorating Elizabeth Barrs was done.
The name of the monumental mason appears at the foot of this gravestone: Smart of Attleborough. There is an Attleborough only three miles from Burton Hastings on the outskirts of Nuneaton, so I presume Smart's did their engraving here (and not in Norfolk!).
The slate would most likely have come from the quarry at Swithland in the neighbouring county of Leicestershire. Smart's doesn't seem to exist these days, but there is still a monumental mason in Attleborough - Dobson's.
1 comment:
A good alternative to slate would be cast iron, very popular in the 19thC. but I suspect finding someone to do the casting might prove a tad problematical these days.
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