All Saints, Elton, Derbyshire

16/01/2016: Eric Gill said that "Letters are things, not pictures of things", so when the Victorians started adding decorative folderols to every concievable item, they did it to letters too. Generally with hideous results. Including one of the stones at Elton.

The churchyard includes a cast iron grave marker, originally fitted with a small plaque to record the details of the deceased. I wonder if these might have been temporary markers, put in place intil the coffin and ground settled and a permanent headstone could be installed?

The headstone for Margaret Stevenson shows some recutting over her first name. The lighting was dead flat, the lettering shallow and the headstone somewhat eroded, so the details are indistinct. I'll call in again one day when hopefully the lighting will be better.

Outside the door is a coffin shaped stone 'receptacle', currently being used as a garden planter. Was it a coffin? It is short, shallow and wide, so I'm not sure. Or it may have been retrieved from a local farm?

One window is dedicated to Ellen, the wife of the vicar of Elton in 1903, Revd T Johnson, and their son John. The glazier appears to have used glass plate photographs of Ellen and John as part of the window. Effective but a tiny bit creepy.

© Copyright Poor Frank Raw, 2016