A headstone in St Mary’s churchyard, Chatham. © Carole Tyrrell

This month’s symbol often features on 18th century headstones as a memento mori a reminder of mortality.  But more recently, the hourglass was the irritating little symbol on your computer screen which announced that it was thinking about doing something or the glass container, one half filled with sand, which you upended in order to time the boiling of your egg. 

But an hourglass, sometimes with wings, on a tombstone is different.  Instead, it’s a reminder that the ‘sands of time’ have run out. A winged hourglass reminds us that time waits for no-one as ‘tempus fugit’ or ‘time flies’ literally.  An hourglass can often be seen in vanitas paintings as a reminder that life is fleeting, that time is rapidly passing and that every day one comes closer to death.

Vanitas art, from the Latin for vanity, is a genre that flourished in the Netherlands during the early 17^th century.  It’s a particular form of still-life and contains collections of objects that are symbolic of the inevitability of death, the transience of life and vainglory of earthly pursuits and pleasures.  The viewer is invited to look at the painting and to be reminded of their own mortality.  They also provided a moral justification for painting attractive objects. As with a lot of moralistic genre painting  the enjoyment evoked by the sensuous depiction of the subject is in a certain conflict with the moralistic message.  Vanitas pictures evolved from earlier simple paintings of skulls and other symbols of death which were often painted on the back of portraits during the late Renaissance. It’s height of popularity was during 1620 – 1650 and was centred in Leiden in the Netherlands and  Flanders, the Dutch speaking region of Belgium.

Very few vanitas picture contain figures and, instead, they contain certain standard items.  These are: symbols of arts and sciences (books, maps, and musical instruments), wealth and power (purses, jewellery, gold objects), and earthly pleasures (goblets, pipes, and playing cards); symbols of death or transience (skulls, clocks, burning candles, soap bubbles, and flowers); and, sometimes, symbols of resurrection and eternal life (usually ears of corn or sprigs of ivy or laurel).   And of course hourglasses to reflect the passing of time and the need to make the most of it.  Objects were often tumbled together in disarray, suggesting the eventual overthrow of the achievements they represent.

However, Douglas Keister, author of Stories in Stone, has suggested another, bolder interpretation of the symbol:

 ‘The hourglass can also be turned over or inverted over and over again which symbolises the cyclic nature of life and death, heaven and earth.  Inversion can be seen as the interplay of opposites in death giving rise to life and vice versa. ‘

In fact it wasn’t until I started researching for this piece that I realised how many interpretations the hourglass symbol could have. Pirates are reputed to use it on their flags as a warning to their victims and enemies that their time, or lives, were about to run out.  They can also feature in tattoos especially in prison where a tattoo of an hourglass may mean no parole.

There is also an association with old movies in that the hero/heroine has one span of the sand in which to make a decision or rescue.  The dramatic turning over of the great hourglass down to the spiralling of that last grain of sand adds to the mystery and drama.

A quick online search also revealed masonic and spiritual associations.  Two saints are traditionally pictured with hourglasses; St Ambrose and St Magdalene as is the Greek god, Chronos, the personification of time. The Grim Reaper or Death when depicted as a skeleton, often holds an hourglass with his scythe as does Old Father Time.

The hourglass is, in my opinion, one of the most graphic memento mori symbols.  At that time, most people were illiterate but would understand visual images and would know the significance of an hourglass, especially one with wings. I love memento mori symbols and enjoy finding them in the ancient churchyards of North Kent churches – what will I discover next?

Text and photos copyright Carole Tyrrell unless indicated otherwise.

References and further reading:

How to read symbols, Clare Gibson, A C Black, 2009

Stories in Stone – A Field Guide to Cemetery Symbolism and Iconography, Douglas Keister, Gibbs Smith, USA 2004

An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Traditional Symbols, J C Cooper, Thames & Hudson, 1978

Vanitas | Tate

Vanitas – Wikipedia

Memento mori – Wikipedia

I am currently suffering from Covid which is not the writers friend to say the least.

But this short piece came up on the BBC news website recently and it did raise the question, and not for the first time, about what happens to patients graves when the institution, hospital or asylum in which they lived closes.

The small iron crosses in Nayland cemetery seem to have a happy ending as local people, some of whom worked at the Jane Walker hospital, have taken on their upkeep for the foreseeable future. Follow the link for further information.

Nayland: The cemetery where iron crosses mark people with disabilities – BBC News

But not all patients graveyards have such a positive outcome and I have written in previous posts about Netherne Hospital cemetery which is abandoned and overgrown. Also, St Lawrence’s which was a hospital for disabled people, and now sits in the middle of a golf course. However, it is being cared for by a Friends group.  They are still acknowledged as burial places for patients or residents.

Others have not been so fortunate. In 1981, Cane Hill Hospital, a former Victorian lunatic asylum, was being prepared for redevelopment and their cemetery was cleared.  The remains of almost 6000 people were exhumed and cremated at Croydon Cemetery in Mitcham Road, Croydon. These included British First World War veterans who had had separate areas in the cemetery where they had been buried with full military honours. According to Wikipedia:

‘Research from plans indicated that there two designated main ‘service plots’ numbered 411 and 420, where six were buried in each grave. Eighteen of these, who had qualified for commemoration by the Commonwealth War Grave Commission (CWGC) are commemorated on a memorial that the CWGC erected in Croydon Cemetery, where their ashes had been scattered at ‘Location 1000’ in the grounds in 2015’

This is the unofficial memorial at Croydon Cemetery that records the servicemen interred there from Cane Hill. The original CWGC memorial was stolen and they do not recognise these.

In 2009, a headstone was placed at Location 1000 to record the patients buried there.

This was placed there due to patients families wanting to see the final resting place of their relatives and being directed to an

‘unmarked mound of earth in Croydon Cemetery’s Garden of Remembrance’

I have to say that it isn’t where I’d like my relatives last resting place to be.

However, a local councillor at the time felt:

‘sure that visitors will soon look on it as a suitable memorial area for those who died at Cane Hill.’

Anonymous in life and anonymous in death it would seem. There are some archive photos of the cemetery and the mound on www.simoncornwell.com     One wonders what memorials and information about patients was lost during this process especially as the NHS policy was to incinerate their records or leave them lying around in a derelict building. A local reporter did try and start a campaign to save them but it’s unsure what happened to it.

There is also the case of the Mendip Hospital Cemetery which I have written about in a previous post in which the NHS attempted to sell off a patients cemetery and Chapel as a ‘freehold development’. This was saved by local people who formed a friends group which appears to still be going strong. There are some lovely photos of it on TripAdvisor. The numbered iron markers, although long gone from the graves, are still there.

But who knows how many of these cemetery and graveyards have been lost over the years as the institutions close and no one knows what to do with them.  They are still someone’s relatives and as times change they may want to find out what happened to them. After all, local people saved the Mendip Hospital and St Lawrence’s and it was patients relatives who ensured that they finally had a proper headstone on the mound at Croydon Cemetery.  Someone cared enough to do something.

Text and photos© Carole Tyrrell unless otherwise stated.

Further reading:

Friends of Mendip Hospital Cemetery – Welcome

Cane Hill Hospital – Wikipedia

New headstone for Cane Hill paupers’ graves | Your Local Guardian

cane hill (simoncornwell.com)

The Forgotten Servicemen of Cane Hill | Surrey in the Great War:

‘And Bert’s gone syphilitic’ – The Real Tragedies Behind the Cane Hill Hospital Memorial at Croydon. | The Western Front Association