Historic Churches 2015

8 / 56

8 BCD SPECIAL REPORT ON HISTORIC CHURCHES 22ND ANNUAL EDITION
aisles or at the west end of the church. The
spaces in the side alleys of the nave were
usually reserved for wealthy bachelors and
spinsters. This was merely a general rule
and was not necessarily sacrosanct.
It also has to be borne in mind that
many churches were re-paved in the 19th
century and some architects were not
averse to clearing all of the ledger stones
into the churchyard. This was the case
at Great Massingham, Norfolk when the
architect Daniel Penning restored the
church there in 1863. Many ledgers were
merely transferred to the west end of the
building, as at Saffron Walden, Essex in
1859–60 when RC Hussey restored that
building. The fashion in the mid-19th
century for elevating chancel altars on
three steps saw the obliteration of some
ledger stones, many of which are now only
half visible, and heating programmes also
saw the removal and re-siting of ledgers in
the way of the heating pipes.
Late 20th-century re-orderings have
also been responsible for ledger stone
relocations, although perhaps the saddest
cases are those where churches have
decided to smother their floors with
broadloom carpeting, thus obliterating
the very presence of the ledger stones and
making them almost impossible to record.
CARE
Ledger stones are easy to clean, although
water should never be involved. The
simplest and most efficient approach is
to vacuum them, having first released the
years of dust from the cut inscriptions by
means of a medium-hard stencil brush.
That done, an application of beeswax will
seal the stone and, once polished, will
bring it up looking as good as it did on
the day it was laid. From then on a weekly
dust with a dry mop will suffice.
At all times it should be remembered
that ledger stones are important items, for
not only do they mark the resting place (in
the main) of those they commemorate but
they also contain valuable genealogical
information on the deceased within the
brick grave. They should not be used as a
convenient hard surface for the stacking
of chairs, nor for flower-stands, drum-
kits or sections of staging. Nor, worse
still, should they be used as a convenient
hard-standing for lavatory pods (as
noticed recently in a church in Norfolk).
It is essential, especially in those
more rural and isolated churches which
do not have efficient heating systems,
that they are not covered by carpeting.
In cold weather the burial space beneath
a ledger stone gives up dew and it is not
unusual for the stones to be powdered
with dew-drops in the early morning. If
a church has laid broadloom carpeting
over such stones then this will only
lead to rapid decay of the carpet, so
it is always prudent to let such stones
breathe naturally or, if necessary, to
cover them with rush matting.
THE LEDGERSTONE SURVEY
It has been estimated that there are
about 250,000 ledger stones in England
and Wales. The monumental brasses in
the United Kingdom have already been
fully recorded and it was in 2002 that the
Ledgerstone Survey of England & Wales
was established to do the same for ledgers.
NADFAS church recorders now
include ledger stones in their church
surveys but anyone can take part (see
for more information and
to download a copy of the recording form
and guidelines). Recording ledger stones
will give you hours of pleasant pastime,
will help to document a much-neglected
form of funerary commemoration and will,
I trust, prove that ledger stones are not
quite the ‘ugly duckling’ of the monument
trade some would claim.
Recommended Reading
R Bigland, Observations on Marriages,
Baptisms, and Burials , Richardson
& Clark, London, 1754
JULIAN WS LITTEN PhD FSA is the
chairman of the Ledgerstone Survey of
England & Wales,
Polished ledgers in the Bouchon Chapel, Norwich Cathedral (Photo: Roland Harris)