ARCHIVE : ACTION #6
Archive: a collection of records of a place
Action: the process of doing something
In July, we asked if we could borrow, scan, photo or otherwise copy, any photographs, documents or artefacts that would represent Geddington’s history over the centuries.
Our aim is to create an online archive of our village.
Our weekly article covers the sixth category which is:
THE CHURCH
There have been many booklets written about the church by several of the vicars whilst in residence: that written by the Revd Thomas Woolfenden will be in the Exhibition. The history is, therefore, well recorded. What is not so well-known is the churchyard.
In 2004, the Northamptonshire Family History Society, with co-operation from the Revd Giles Godber and the churchwardens, Mr Ken Ryan and Mrs Margaret Leaton, completed a comprehensive plan of the Churchyard.
With their permission, the plan and some of the information that they gained has been reproduced here.
PLAN OF THE CHURCHYARD
The churchyard is large and divided into sections by paths. In the Plan, the sections are designated A to H. The older stones are mainly found to the south of the church, whilst the newer sections extend back some distance to the north side of the church and the newest section of all is found to the east of the church.
In the accompanying drawing by Thomas Eyre in 1712,
there appear to be no headstones in the area immediately behind the church, in what is now termed Section E on the Plan, and indeed, the majority are dated in the 19th and 20th centuries.
The War Memorial is in the south-west corner and will be the subject of next week’s article.
The Northamptonshire Family History Society is currently undergoing a major project, that of researching and documenting all Memorial Inscriptions in churches and churchyards in Northamptonshire. If you have an interest in this subject and would like to find out more, perhaps buy the book of ‘St Mary Magdalene Memorial Inscriptions’, please visit the Society at www.northants-fhs.org.
If you have any information, documents or pictures relating to any normal day-to-day living in the village during the past few decades (or earlier, if you have them) we would like to hear from you.
The Exhibition on Saturday 1st November is not the end of our Archive Project, but just the start of what we hope will be an ongoing project over the next few years. With more material and research we’ll be bringing more fascinating facts to light.