The headstone dedicated to Mrs Martha Pepper and her two daughters, Elizabeth and Sarah. © Carole Tyrrell
Firstly, Happy New Year to you all! Winter is always a good time to explore cemeteries and churchyards due to the winter die back of vegetation and last November was no exception.
Now, a word of warning, never assume when you’re out exploring churchyards that all headstones are facing in a certain way. I have visited this churchyard several times, saw this headstone and had dismissed it as being weathered and unreadable. How wrong I was! I had thought that it was facing me when in fact the opposite was true.
On this visit, it was a terrible November day, cold and wet, and the evening chill was beginning to close in as the evening began to draw on. The winter die back had revealed headstones along the churchyard’s front wall and boundary wall that I hadn’t previously able to previously see displaying a multitude of ‘winged souls’.
Headstones placed along a boundary wall displaying ‘winged souls’. © Carole Tyrrell
These have featured in a previous Symbol of the Month dated 29 April 2025. But as I was gingerly stepping over wet leaves to look at them more closely by the front entrance, I looked down and saw this one!
The women of the Pepper family. © Carole Tyrrell
It is actually facing the churchyard wall and I had been looking at its back on my other visits. It still looks as crisp and clear as when it was carved with two stylised skulls and bones facing each other displaying teeth.
On the right hand side there is a dedication to:
‘Here lyeth
Martha, wife of Wm Pepper
Aged 24 Was Buryed on
11th day of November 1705’
On the left hand side there is another dedication is to their two daughters:
‘ Here lyeth Eliz {abeth}
and Sarah
daughters of
Wm and Martha Pepp’
I couldn’t see any dates but they may be obscured by damp vegetation.
What’s interesting about this headstone is, that if you look closely, you can see that the stonemason has run out of space with some of the letters and had to put the rest of them on the next line. This happens with ‘Martha’ and also ‘Pepper’ on the left hand side near the bottom when both words become split. I haven’t seen this before on a headstone although I knew that it did happen.
Full view of William Pepper’s headstone. © Carole Tyrrell
William Pepper is also buried in the churchyard but I couldn’t find his tombstone on this visit. Instead, I had to consult Charles Cotton’s 1895 book, ‘History and Antiquities of the Church and Parish of St Laurence (Lawrence) Thanet (Ramsgate) which I found on the Kent Archaeological Society website under their Monumental Inscriptions page.
As a result, I did make a return visit to the churchyard and located William’s tombstone which is beside Martha’s. As you can see it is much larger with a winged soul at the top and what I assume to be clouds above that.
A full view of William Pepper’s epitaph. © Carole Tyrrell
There is also a more fulsome epitaph although much of it wasn’t readable. What I could read said:
‘Here lyeth with his wife
and two Children
Wm Pepper…..the rest is illegible
who died on the 15th April 1746 aged 73 years….the rest is illegible.’
It may be easier to read on a better day. The headstone seems to have been more professionally carved but of the two I do prefer his wife’s.
But Martha’s tombstone had been such a wonderful find on such a terrible day weatherwise and it was good to be able to find her husband’s headstone as well to complete the family group.
The two tombstones encapsulate the change that took place in churchyard symbols during the 18th century. It began with the very stark reminder of death with the skull and crossbones to a more comforting message for those left behind towards the end of the century. This emphasised that there might be eternal life on ‘the other side’ as the soul flies heavenward.
©Text and photos Carole Tyrrell unless otherwise stated.
References:
History and Antiquities of the Church and Parish of St Laurence (Lawrence)Thanet (Ramsgate) – reference taken from the Kent Archaeological Society website under Monumental Records, Charles Cotton 1895.
shadows fly away 