18 C O N T E X T 1 0 5 : J U LY 2 0 0 8 of archaeologists on Diocesan Advisory Committees seeks to keep disruption to a minimum. There is a clear role for the designation of special monuments.Many early monuments await recognition; many vigorous examples of headstones from the 18th century remain unlisted; many monuments of all periods have special interest which warrants designation. This flagging helps with interpretation, it prioritises conservation (and we inevitably have to be selective about what it is we can conserve) and it highlights special sensitivities which need respecting. With their local materials, local styles, local occupations and local masons, no two churchyards are the same. Few places display more clearly the homogenising impact of industrialisation: in this case in the form of the late Victorian emergence of the commercial statuary, the standardisation of materials and the professionalisation of the mason’s trade. Keeping memorials in a decent state of repair was part of the process of remembrance. Churchwardens and vicars, through parochial church councils, do their best to make up for the extinction of the sexton as a parish position. Credit is due to them for maintaining these special places. Church roofs generally have higher conservation claims than sagging chest tombs, and we know what a repairs deficit there is affecting church buildings.We need to encourage an approach of stitchin-time attention, encouraging regular maintenance rather than costly one-off conservation jobs. Some monuments are almost too costly to tackle. And there are simply not enough skilled conservators available to tackle the backlog. Mausoleums, free-standing buildings erected solely for the reception of bodies, are the most grandiose of all sepulchres. The Mausolea and Monuments Trust, set up in 1997, has a good gazetteer on its website. It has taken a number of mausoleums into direct guardianship and carried out conservation programmes on a selection of them. From lichens to yew trees, nature embellishes the setting of church and monuments. The organic cycle of death, decay and new life has long been a theme for sermon and epitaph. The sexton’s war against plant growth has ceased: the cropped lawn is no longer the norm, and careful, relaxed management of wildlife areas is increasingly common. Trees can throttle tombs, and sycamore and ivy works its way into gaps and cracks, and can burst the structures apart. The Living Churchyard initiative, established in 1986 under the aegis of the Arthur Rank Foundation, did much to communicate the conservation value of churchyards. 6 The number of churchyards, and the number of memorials within them, is daunting. What should be an embarrassment of riches becomes a hindrance. We become daunted by the sheer numbers, and blasé towards decay. Interpretation and synthesis seem elusive. We can approach God’s Acre in an elegiac mist, but historical and archaeological rigour must be brought to bear as well. Belief in the resurrection of the body at the last judgment is one of the strongest messages of many older churchyards. How external monuments reinforced the Christian messages that were received within the church is just one of the strong connections linking person and parish, headstone and church, faith and life. The total subordination in scale and purpose between tomb and church is also telling. The Church of England has a massive conservation responsibility. As previously noted, it publishes The Churchyards Handbook, which is both practical and lyrical in its guidance. The Heritage Protection Reform Bill proposes an end to dual control in the churchyard: the Left: Plane trees in the churchyard of St Mary’s, Banbury, Oxon. Art and nature reinforce each other in the graveyard context. Organic growth and organic decay co-exist in rivalry. Right: Major Cartwright obelisk, 1835, St Mary at Finchley, London Borough of Barnet. Decay as destruction of memory: the great reformer’s relief portrait is all but perished.
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