Memorial Survey

Thundridge Old Church Action Group (TOCAG) are working to piece together Thundridge Old Church’s 18th and 19th century gravemarkers.  Whilst some stones are remarkably still complete and largely legible, other fragments have fared less well and are proving more challenging for Thundridge Old Church visitors to decipher.

TOCAG would like to complete a memorial survey of the final resting places of Thundridge Parish’s past residents; to help widen access to biographical, geneological and other local heritage records. Thankfully, in addition to the remaining stones and church’s burial register, Thundridge Old Church’s cherished churchyard memorials have been recorded through the years by earlier antiquarians including: Rev James Harvey Bloom, curate of St Andrews, Hertford, in 1888; Cambridge student Edith Hitch (later Mrs Thomas Hunt), whose records were included in William Gerish’s East Hertfordshire Archeological Society (EHAS) memorial lists published in 1907; and Alfred Charles Pagan in 1979.  Many of these records were re-compiled into ‘Hertfordshire Monumental Inscriptions The Parish Churches of St Mary, Thundridge including St Mary, Thundridge Old Church and St John, High Cross: MI Series No 95’ by members of the Hertfordshire Family History Society in 2009. 

So how can you help?  A bit of detective teamwork will help TOCAG explore and expand the historical records, some of which are limited to names and dates; decipher digital and digitalised photos, which can be easier to read than a sun bleached or rain drenched stone; and utilise drone technology to improve hand drawn survey maps.

 

Broken Fragment

As an example, here’s a close up of one stone fragment that currently lies at the North East corner of the tower, out of place and at risk of further damage, sadly separated from both its original location and namesake’s records. Please send your thoughts on this broken slab transcription, plausible missing words, and possible fracture matches with fragments located elsewhere in the churchyard.  

Maybe working together we can find out who it belongs to, who they were, and their link to the Church and our local History  

 

to the Memory

Of a merciful God

Committed husband to Be… His p

A firm Faithful in the word of His B…

And the Resurrection and the light

In me though He

And whosover liveth and believeth in me Shall never Die

He left only one Child a Son

And his Afflic…

For their Irrepar…