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All Saints, Loughborough, Leicestershire
14/09/2016: (Locked). This church is only 6 miles from Swithland, the source of the legendary Swithland slate headstones. At some point in the past the collection of headstones here must have been an impressive sight, with family groups and perhaps rows of graves added in date order. But someone (usually the vicar with or without the support of the PCC) decided to uproot almost every headstone. Around half have been used as paving around the church, the rest have been arranged into a bizzare set of 'beds' making the stones hard to read and even harder to photograph. This is cultural vandalism, but it makes it nice and easy to mow the grass without all of those irreplaceable memorials getting in the way.
They also dumped a nice late C18th / early C19th sundial against some of the headstones which were shunted to the perimiter of the churchyard.
The only up-side (apart from ease of mowing) to the philistinic clearance of history and community which is on show at Loughborough is that the bottom sections of many headstones are now visible. The part of a headstone normally underground was often used as a practice area in the letter cutter's workshop. Apprentices could test their skills on good quality stone but the results would never normally be seen. In this churchyard we can see the usual range of test letters, some decorative borders and even complete alphabets.
