Untitled - Council for British Archaeology

8
suggest that the journey was a short one, and
it is not inconceivable that the region of the
Icknield Way was reached.
I would like to see Wallbury and Ravensbingh
in the forefront of Chiltern investigations
during the next ten years. Shortly, a fifth
of the trees at Ravensburgh will be felled and
replanted. There will be a brief respite between
the two events when four or five acres cf
the interior will be free for examination.
This is the sort of rescue excavation on which
1 consider time and money should be spent. I'
have high hopes of a Chiltern 'Danebury' before
many summers are out. Perhaps we cr..n persuade
our friends in Essex to have a closer look at
Wallbury, and twist the arm of the earlier excavator,
whose comments we eagerly await.
A SURVEY OF THE MEMORIALS IN THE CHURCHYARD OF
ALL SAINTS CHURCH, MIDDLETON STONEY, OXFORD-
SHIRE - Fran Stewart, Wallingford Historical
and Archaeological Society.
Any churchyard and its memorials are part of
the social history of the surrounding.community,
and are a potential source of information.1,2'
So far, few churchyards have been studied in
detail.
It is important for studies to be made ùow,
for the following reasons. Firstly, the inscriptions
and sculpture on the.memorials will
eventually disappear. Many of the earlier inscriptions
are already illegible due to weathering,
or- aggravated by atmospheric pollution.
Secondly, in many churchyards memorials have
been, are are being, moved from their original
positions, to simplify maintenance, and in the
process some of them have been, or will be,
.damaged or lost completely. Thirdly, many
memorials have been intentionally destroyed or
removed from the churchyard. The most worthwhile
information will be derived from churchyards
where little' or no disturbance has taken
place, and where there is a high proportion-of
decipherable inscriptions, if possible dating
back to the earlier periods i.e.-to the C.17th
and C.18th.
The survey of the memorials in the churchyard
of All Saints, Middleton Stoney, was instigated
as part of an archaeological training
school organised by the Department for External
Studies of the University of Oxford, in July
1974. The purpose of this survey was to extract
from the churchyar.-1 as much personal
detail as possible for t4le persons commemorated
there.
Most of the memurials before 1850 required a
great deal of scrutiny, preferably with the aid
of strong side-lighting; this enabled many inscriptions,
seemingiy illegible when viewed
under diffuse lighting, to be read quite easily
by a'persistent recorder. The side-lighting
was provided by the sun if this was in the
right position, or.could be achieved by reflecting
sunlight with a large milror on to
each inscription;, this was a very rewarding
two-man exercise, and the results were remarkably
successful. Some of the inscriptions on
the older headstones were found to extend some
way below the present ground surface. They
were consequently quite easy io read as they
had been protected from the weather. Considerable
persistence was required to decipher
many of the older inscriptions, partly because
of the extravagant styles of writing.
There were 277 memorials in the churchyard
(excluding the 27 Second World War RAF memorials,
not used in the analysis). Approximately
three-quarters of them commemorated one
person, a quarter commemorated two persons,
and a small fraction commemorated three or
more persons. The inscriptions could be read
on 95% of the memorials, providing information
for some 350 persons.
The earliest memorials in the churchyard
were for deaths which occurred tow.rds the end
of the C.I7th. There were only a few deaths
commemorated by memorial in each decade until
1790; from then on the numbers increased
dramatically, rising tn a peak during the
years 1860-1869.
1: Aston, M. & Rowley, T. Landscape Archaeology,
David and Charles (1974).
2. Jesson, Margaret. The Archaeology of
Churches, CBA (1973)