Dear readers

It has been an eventful summer for me, to say the least. I moved house again for various reasons and now live in Rochester, Kent.  For those of you that don’t know it, it’s a town associated with Charles Dickens and is on the banks of the River Medway.

But I have also been busy researching 18^th century memento mori’s in Kent churchyards, both around Sevenoaks and Rochester. It was quite surprising to see the differences in carvings from church to church and parish to parish.  They started out as naïve, almost crude, motifs and then professional stonemasons became involved.  In the churchyard of St Peter & St Paul church in Tonbridge there were still 2 tombstones dating back to medieval times. A blog post on my research, or I prefer to call it, poking about in churches and churchyards, is forthcoming as is Symbol of the Month amongst others.

So although shadowsflyaway has been quiet over August I’ve been gearing up for the autumn.

To whet your appetite for the Memento mori post here is one from the churchyard of St Peter and St Paul in Seal, Kent which is almost like a piece of Folk Art in my opinion…

© Text and photos Carole Tyrrell