Visitors walking around the Avebury landscape today can only wonder at its significance and marvel at its continued survivial. Burial ground is now at a premium but back in the Bronze Age there was no such problem. The Avebury area was a desirable and important site for burials and evidence remains in the surrounding countryside. A hundred round burial mounds have been identified, some raised over an individual burial others over multiple occupancy graves, many of them ploughed almost flat during agricultural activity across the millennia.
Travelling the West Kennet Avenue is a journey back through time, despite the busy roads which run parallel. Approximately a third of the avenue is flanked by pairs of stones, one diamond shaped, one straight and it has been suggested that these shapes may represent the female and male form. This avenue continues for more than a mile and a half from the southern entrance of the Avebury henge to a double stone circle on Overton Hill, now known as the Sanctuary. Built more than 4,000 years ago, the burial of a young man was discovered here, next to one of the stones.
Nearby West Kennet Long Barrow is the longest of around fourteen long barrows in the Avebury area and is believed to have been constructed in around 3700 BC. It has been excavated just twice, once in 1859 and again in the 1950s. West Kennet Barrow contains five chambers linked by a corridor and contains a total of 36 burials.
But there was another type of burial at Avebury, which is both surprising and shocking to the modern visitor – the burial of the stones. Across the centuries some of the stones were destroyed for practical purposes – to make more easily workable agricultural land and to provide building material – but less obvious and more intriguing is the burial of numerous stones. There was a time, probably from the 5th century through to the turbulent religious Tudor period, when the stones were regarded as a shameful relic of our pagan past and the theory is that the residents of Avebury were encouraged to bury theirs.
William Stukeley, an 18th century antiquarian first recorded that stones at Avebury had been buried in great pits. Then two nineteenth century clergymen A.C. Smith and W.C. Lucas came to the same conclusions and in the 1930s Avebury resident Alexander Keiller went a step further. Keiller was responsible for excavating and re-erecting 50 stones in the henge and the West Kennet Avenue.
Despite the throng of visitors and the persistent traffic, Avebury retains its mystical and mesmerising atmosphere and one blog visit is nowhere near enough. See tomorrow’s instalment for my visit to St. James’s churchyard.
William John Josiah Fellowes Thomas. What a long name for such a small person. It was a name to grow into. Sadly, he never had that opportunity.
The inscription stretched the length of the small kerbstone memorial. ‘William John Josiah Fellowes Thomas who died March 1892 Aged 8 months.’ They had lived at No 4 Albion Street then, their first home together. Such a happy time, waiting for the birth of their first child.
She had prayed she would never have to bury another child in the cold earth and for several years it seemed as if God had heard her, spared her. Two daughters survived and thrived and then another son; a small, sickly baby.
‘Also of Cyril Thomas who died Feb 1907 aged 9 months.’
Why had they named him Cyril; she couldn’t remember now. Why hadn’t they given him a more impressive name. Cyril. Not much of a name. She didn’t even care for it now. Cyril.
The little grave was the size of a cot. She wished John hadn’t chosen this plot in the lower half of the cemetery. She wished they had buried the babies up on the higher ground, near the other family graves, where the early morning sun peeped through the trees. The boys always woke early. She remembered that, watching the sunrise at the bedroom window, rocking them, trying to soothe them.
She looked across the cemetery. Some of the mourners were still standing at the graveside. This was where she would be laid to rest when the time came, buried with John, next to her parents, close to her brothers. She wished she could have her sons with her.
She left a spray of flowers on the small grave. Two daughters survived and thrived, two sons died.
The facts …
During the 1870s William Fellowes, an iron moulder, brought his family down to Swindon from Wolverhampton. By the time of the 1881 census William and his wife were living at 22 Albion Street. Brothers William and Josiah had followed their father into the railway works while sister Adelaide is working as a dressmaker.
On July 9, 1890 Adelaide married John Thomas, a widower with two young daughters. Her first child, a son named William John Josiah Fellowes Thomas, named after her father and three brothers, was born in 1891 and baptised on November 3. A daughter named Adelaide Fellowes Thomas was born in 1896; Gwendoline was born in 1900 a second son Cyril in 1906.
By the end of the 19th century William and Sarah were running a grocer’s shop at 35 Commercial Road, a property that would remain in the Fellowes/Thomas family for more than forty years.
William died at his home in Commercial Road in May 1905 and was buried in plot E7812. The burial registers include the following information – ‘Exhumed 14th March 1906 Re-interred in 7741E.’ His wife Sarah died nine years later and was buried in the same plot on October 22, 1914.
Adelaide and John were buried next to William and Sarah in plot E7740 and brother William and his wife Mary were buried in plot E7742.
Josiah died in 1902 aged just 37. He is buried in plot E7955 with his brother John who died in 1910 aged 50. Their grave is just two plots away from their sister Adelaide.
The Fellowes family remained close in life and death, except for the two little babies buried together on the other side of the cemetery.
Today I’m taking a short walk from the cemetery to the churchyard at Holy Rood Church where burials pre-date those at Radnor Street by more than 700 years…
The Goddard family were Lords of the Manor of Swindon for more than 350 years but you won’t find any of them buried in Radnor Street Cemetery.
The Goddard family home was set in extensive parkland with spectacular views across the Wiltshire country side. Until the early 19th century the property was known as Swindon House after which it received a bit of a makeover and was renamed The Lawn. The family worshipped in the neighbouring parish church where Richard Goddard Esquire was buried on May 20, 1650 according to the wishes expressed in his Will that his body was ‘to be interred and buryed in the parish church of Swindon.’
The ancient parish church closed to general worship in 1851 after which most of it was demolished leaving only the chancel, the 14th century arches, a few chest tombs and the Goddard family tomb.
The Goddard family vault stood beneath the floor of the North Chapel. When this was demolished a mausoleum was built above it. Today the Goddard family tomb is a Grade II listed monument described as made of limestone with sandstone panels and built in the Gothic revival style. In his book The Story of Holy Rood – Old Parish Church of Swindon published in 1975, Denis Bird confirms that the Goddard tomb dates from around 1852 and was constructed on the site of the north chapel. Exposed to the elements and random acts of vandalism during its 169 year history, today the plaques on the side of the tomb are difficult to read.
Following the construction of Christ Church the ruins of Holy Rood came under the watchful eye of the Goddard family. Although the churchyard closed to new burials, interments in existing family graves continued for some years. A drawing dated c1800 shows the churchyard contained numerous headstones. Sadly, these were all repositioned in 1949 and arranged around the churchyard wall.
The last Lord of the Manor to live at The Lawn, Fitzroy Pleydell Goddard died at the family home on Friday August 12th 1927. Major Fitzroy Pleydell Goddard’s dying request was that his funeral service be as simple as possible and that he wished to be buried in a “plain elm coffin made from timber grown on my estate.” The Major’s funeral took place on Monday August 15 at 8pm. Swindon Advertiser headlines read ‘Interred at Sunset’ and ‘Large Attendance.’ As requested the Major’s coffin was made from one of his trees, cut down in Drove Road during road widening work. Covered by a Union Jack flag the coffin was carried from The Lawn to the Parish church on a handbier where Canon C.A. Mayall and Dr. R. Talbot, the Archdeacon of Swindon conducted a simple service in Christ Church. The congregation was estimated to number in the thousands as Swindon marked the end of an era.
The last member of the family to be buried in the Goddard tomb was Charles Frederick Goddard, Rector of Doynton, Gloucestershire who died on May 11, 1942 and is buried alongside his parents Ambrose Lethbridge and Charlotte Goddard.
Bird writes: ‘To say that ten thousand people may have been buried here may be no exaggeration, for although the population of early Swindon may have numbered no more than a few hundred souls at any one time, it was here that nearly all found their last resting place, generation after generation, for perhaps more than 700 years.’
The churchyard at Holy Rood, Swindon’s first ‘modern’ burial ground.
The view from the Goddard mansion in the Lawn.
The Goddard family tomb
Acorner of the churchyard and the repositioned headstones
These are difficult times for old cemeteries, long closed and with no dedicated caretaker and groundsmen. When interments take place only occasionally and few people attend their family graves, cemeteries today are quiet places.
Some complain about the lack of care and maintenance provided by local authorities. We are told budgets are stretched and then we have the ongoing Covid crisis placing spending constraints on council services. What is the answer for our cemeteries?
Highgate Cemetery in London has long led the way in cemetery conservation and guided cemetery walks. Opened in 1839 by a private company (as most Victorian cemeteries were) by the 1970s the cemetery was no longer a profitable concern and became neglected and vandalised. Today it is run by volunteers of the Friends of Highgate Cemetery Trust supported by some members of paid staff. Highgate remains a working cemetery although space for new burials is running out, which presents more problems.
Abney Park Cemetery in Stoke Newington is another of the ‘Magnificent Seven’ garden cemeteries of London. The cemetery was opened in 1840, again by a private company. In the 1970s the company went into administration and the cemetery was abandoned and fell into disrepair. Today it is thriving as a woodland memorial park and Local Nature Reserve maintained by the Abney Park Trust, a small volunteer led charity, and the London Borough of Hackney.
Our closed Victorian cemeteries pose a problem nationwide. In 1999 the Friends of Lister Lane Cemetery came to the rescue of the Halifax General Cemetery, again after a long period of neglect. This cemetery opened in 1841 and was designed according to the ethos of the period to be not only a burial ground but to provide a public space for walks and outdoor relaxation. The Friends group now cares for the cemetery with support from Calderdale Bereavement Services when funds permit.
Here in Radnor Street Cemetery we have a small team of volunteers who attend to not only the Commonwealth War Graves, but other graves where a fallen serviceman is remembered. The Community Payback Team also dedicate one day a week to work in the cemetery and during ‘normal’ times the Council mow twice, maybe three times a year, but as we all know, these are far from normal times.
The summer of 2021 has served up a combination of heavy rain and long, hot sunny days. Today the cemetery is a vision of wild abandonment. A place of serene beauty and perfect for the proliferation of wildlife and biodiversity in this densley populated urban area. Eventually the groundsmen will return and some order will be re-imposed. Until then we must try to be patient and rest awhile, as the cemetery residents are so well practised at doing. There will be a time to attend to family graves when this difficult period has passed.
It was possibly one of the saddest stories I had ever heard.
“He was perfect, not a mark on him,” she said. “They laid him on the dresser. He was the same colour as the marble top. Please wrap him up, I said. He’ll get cold.”
I sat and held her hand. I wanted her to rest, but she wanted to talk. She wanted to tell the story she’d kept a secret for more than seventy years.
“Mother said he was born dead, but I remembered hearing a muffled cry, a whimper. Of course, it was easier this way. No awkward questions to answer, no explanations.”
She coughed. I wiped her mouth, squeezed a moistened cloth against her lips.
“My sister Dolly knew what was happening. She’d tried to warn me, slept in my bed with me, but there were other opportunities for him. Mother did nothing. Ten babies she’d had. Enough was enough, I suppose.”
The subtle sounds of morning began to percolate. Cups rattled on saucers, a squeaky trolley wheel, footsteps along the corridor.
“I would have loved him. He couldn’t help how he came about. I never got to hold him, just looked at him, lying on the top of the dresser in front of the window. I closed my eyes and cried and Mother held me in her arms. Perhaps she did love me. When I opened my eyes again he’d gone.”
I sat in silence, selfishly hoping that would be the end of this heartbreaking story.
“They told me they had buried him with a nice old lady. They did that in those days, you know, buried little babies in a grave with an old person. I liked the idea he had someone to take him with them. He wouldn’t be alone and frightened.
She sank back against the pillows, her laboured breathing rattling in her chest.
“I never had any more babies. There was never time for all that after Mother left. Dolly and me had to look after the young ‘uns, and pa.”
A nurse pulled back the curtains at the window. It was going to be another beautiful day.
“I’d like to have been buried with him, but at least he wasn’t on his own.”
And then she was gone.
The facts …
Stories still circulate that in the 19th and early 20th century babies who died within days of their birth were buried with unrelated adults, usually an elderly woman. So far I have not found any examples in Radnor Street Cemetery, but then how would such an incident be discovered?
Mostly the babies were buried in large, communal plots. In section Lower B there are a number of plots reserved for the burial of infants under a year old. Several babies lived for just five minutes. Some entries contain the barest details while others include the parents’ names; one sad entry records ‘male child found in Wilts & Berks Canal.’ Burials often took place daily, sometimes with more than one burial a day.
Here is a list of the names of those babies buried in grave plot B2899.
1903
7771 Margaretta Hobbs 10 days 23 Poulton Street 3rd March
7796 Ethel Blake 24 hours 39 Summers Street 25th March
7804 Edward John Gibbs 16 days 107 Salisbury Street 28th March
7811 Florence May Alder 13 days 6 Avening Street 1st April 1903
7812 George Jackson 5 min 14 Ripley Road 1st April
7814 Alfred George Gibbs 3 weeks 107 Salisbury Street 4th April (twin of Edward John Gibbs)
7830 child of John and Lily Selwood 13 days 50 Suffolk Street 16th April
7846 George Edmund Jackson 6 hours 28 Whiteman Street 24th April
7851 Turner (male) 1 hour 25 Vilett Street 28th April
7853 Edith Thesbe Ashton 1 month 22 Regent Place 29th April
7882 Albert Edward King 1 day 24 Byron Street 28th May
7855 David William Williams 14 days 14 Regent Place 6th June
7893 Ernest Speake 8 days 162 Westcott Place 11th June
7947 Frederick Hudd 1 hour 28 Avening Street 27th July
7961 Charles Blake 7 hours 64 Bridge Street 7th August
7971 Stanley (female) 10 minutes 65 Ponting Street 12th August
7975 Alice Irene Beard 17 hours 59 Eastcott Hill 18th August
7982 Gladys Eliza Smith 25 days 3 Gloucester Street 23th August
7986 Percival James Lawrence 12 days 2 Dowling Street 28th August
7991 Edward Ockwell 4 hours 10 Hythe Road 1st September
7996 Annie & Jessie Smith (twins) 1 day 41 Avening Street 10th September
8015 George Ricks 1 day 224 Ferndale Road 24th September
8016 John Baker 25 days 14 Whitehead Street 25th September
8017 Lily Barington 4 days 22 Rosebery Street 28th September
8022 Minnie Broadbear 22 hours 76 Crombey Street 2nd October
8048 Herbert George Mitchell 1 day 19 Dowling Street 25th October
8062 William Alfred Farrer 2 days 1 Holbrook Street 5th November
8068 William Thomas Payne 1 day 5 Carr Street 10th November
8070 Violet Harding 1 day 7 Morley Street 11th November
8074 Violet Law 21 days 122 Morrison Street 14th November
8081 Ethel May Payne 12 days 5 Carr Street 20th November (twin of William Thomas)
8089 Elizabeth May Peters 11 days 89 Medgbury Road 27th November
8095 George Morris 7 hours 95 Ponting Street 30th November
8097 James Rawlinson 25 days 3 Medgbury Place 1st December
8110 Dolly Rendell Illegitimate child of Charlotte Rendell 1 month 22 Swindon Road 9th December
8114 Albert Edward Ponting 16 days 26 Hinton Street 10th December
8135 Hall (male child) 13 hours 146 Beatrice Street 19th December
8138 John Chandler 2 days 9 Whitney Street 23rd December 1903
1904
8156 Elizabeth Chappell 12 days 6 Morris Cottages 1st January
8162 Charles Frederick Lander 15 days 6 Kitchener Street 5th January
8170 Stephen John Warren 3 weeks 12 Bradford Road 7th January
8181 Grace Wright 7 days 12 Granville Terrace 11th January
8189 William Arthur Franklin 1 month 155 Redcliffe Street 15th January
8196 Frederick James Webb 1 month 11 Bright Street 18th January
8197 Pope Francis Pope 21 hours 71 Curtis Street 19th January
8210 Fred Jefferies 1 day View Point House, North Street 28th January 1904
8216 Gladys Carter 13 days 4 Salisbury Street 30th January
8217 Alfred Edward Lord 27 days 46 Prospect Hill 30th January
8230 James Woolford 36 hours 134 Morrison Street 5th February 1904
8235 Speck (male) 10 months 13 Chester Street 8th February
8238 Mabel Boucher 1 month 25 Oriel Street 10th February
8247 Edith Beer 2 days 26 Prospect Place 19th February
8253 Bertie Green 3 days 101 Westcott Place 20th February
8262 (a) Albert Edward Button 1 month 14 Commercial Road 27th February
8263 Harold Edwards 5 days 69 Caulfield Road 29th February 1904
8264 Percival (male) 5 minutes 4 Bruce Street 29th February 1904
8271 Henry William Turner 5 days 7 Cambria Bridge Road 3rd March
8301 Elizabeth Ann Mayell 1 month 17 Florence Street 26th March 1904
8317 Lily Griffiths 2 days 18 Avening Street 11th April
8323 Sidney Alfred Leach 13 hours 25 Avening Street 19th April
8326 Stanley (male) 3 days 85 Dixon Street 19th April
8328 Gladys Kent 14 days 36 Cricklade Street 20th April
8330 Sarah Osborne minor 20 mins 20 Belgrave Street 22nd April
8353 Florence May Wright 1 month 23 Dean Street 7th May
8356 Charles Brown 6 hours 151 Morrison Street 13th May
8363 Emma Lecomte 12 hours 87 Eastcott Hill 18th May
8372 Elizabeth Ellen Adams 13 days 12 Exeter Street 24th May
8382 Harry Loxton 12 hours 1 Sonning Villa 30th May
8405 Hector Cecil Ashfield 2 days 34 Prospect Place 21st June
8409 Cox (Male) minor ¾ hour 151 Manchester Road 25th June
8415 Viscount Heath 2 weeks 2 Western Street 1st July
8423 Amelia Ann Hewer 14 days 118 Chapel Street 8th July
8436 Godfrey Smart 3 days 48 Albion Street 18th July
8467 Dobson (Female) 2 days 3 Stanier Street 11th August
8476 Ivy Price ½ hour 4 Argyle Street 17th August
8487 Leslie Gordon Ralph 7 days 58 Manchester Road 29th August
8511 Sandling (Female) 7 hours 201 Rodbourne Road 15th September
8536 (female) Leach 1½ 19 Cricklade Road 11th October
8545 Emily Florence Morris 3 days 49 Kingshill Road 18th October
8549 George John Spencer 1 month 50 Newport Street 19th October
8551 Edith Ellen Wait 1 day 128 Ferndale Road 19th October
8552 Leslie Slatter 18 hours 42 Goddard Avenue 19th October
8564 Nellie Fagan 7 hours 121 Beatrice Street 26th October
8572 Leonard Pitman 2 days 16 Kitchener Street 29th October
8591 Nellie Tarrant 4 hours 23 Jennings Street 5th November
8597 John Romans 3 days 18 Edmund Street 11th November
8602 (male) Dowse 5 min 70 Edinburgh Street 14th November
8632 Philip Arthur Nash 19 days 3 Sanford Street 28th November
8657 Albert Scutts 3 weeks 10 Albion Terrace 7th December
8660 Gladys Marcia Dowers 19 days 28 Hughes Street 7th December
So, what is that stonking great big stone set beside the path leading from the Dixon Street gate to the cemetery chapel?
Some have suggested it could be a standing stone associated with ancient sites and early places of worship. This seems unlikely as the land was previously a coppice (an area of managed woodland). The remains of Swindon’s 13th century parish church still stand in the Lawn, the former home of the Goddard family.
Others have suggested the stone may stand on a ley line, connecting ancient sites of importance. Support for this theory lies in the fact that the cemetery stone is apparently in alignment with another in the former GWR Park in Faringdon Road, which is in an alignment with … ?
However, there maybe a much more prosaic geological explanation for the siting of this stone as the following articles suggest, published in the Swindon Advertiser during the construction of the cemetery in 1881.
The Cemetery .- On Tuesday evening last a meeting of the Joint Burial Board was held at the Board-room,Cricklade-street, when there were present, Messrs James Holden, in the chair, and W. Reynolds, W. Dawson, W.E. Morris, R.S. Edmonds, and C. Barker. – Mr W.H. Read, the architect, attended and explained that some considerable difficulty had been met with in draining and laying out the ground in consequence of the contractors meeting with a number of large boulder stones. Where these came in the way of the drains of course the contractors removed them, but there was the fact that others would be found all over the ground where graves would be dug, and he thought it his duty to bring the matter before the committee so that some arrangement could be made to get them removed before the turf was laid down. – The Chairman thought this would form a portion of the contract to lay out the ground, and also that it would pay the contractors to remove the stones for the value of the stone for road making purposes. – Mr Read said it would only pay them to remove the very large ones. The whereabouts of small ones could only be ascertained by pricking the ground over.- The committee decided to meet on the ground on Monday to consider this matter, and also the question of levelling, and the alteration of one of the approaches to the cemetery and the style of fence to be used at the back of Clifton-street.
The Swindon Advertiser, Saturday, May 21, 1881.
Swindon Cemetery
To the Editor of the Swindon Advertiser,
Sir, – The other day I was at Swindon, and went to see what the new cemetery was like. The first thing to attract my attention was a huge stone stuck up on end by the side of one of the principal paths, and on which there had already been scratched a number of letters, inscriptions, and hieroglyphics, evidently the work of those vulgar little boys who are to be found in every community. I was anxious to obtain some reason for the erection this absurd monstrosity, which appeared to be of no other possible use than that to which it had been already applied by the aforementioned vulgar little boys, and this having given me, I beg to submit the following as a suitable inscription to be engraven on a brass plate and affixed to the stone:-
Here stands exhibited
The Taste
(which was Nasty, Rude, and without Form),
of the
Swindon Cemetery Committee,
who,
for a whim,
Consented to write themselves
Je-rusalem Ponies,
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
A Swindonian
A correspondent asks for information respecting the extraordinary geological discoveries said to have been made in preparing the ground in the new cemetery, and is particularly anxious to know about the shells which are said to be found in pairs as they had never been met with before. In answer to the enquiry we would say the whole thing is nothing better than what is known as a “Mares’ nest.” The shell about which so much fuss has been made is one of the commonest found in the Swindon quarries – the trigonia, and that which has been described as shells lying side by side in pairs is simply the two halves of a ‘dead’ shell lying perfectly open and flat instead of closed as a ‘live’ shell would be at the time when it was submerged – a shell out of which some antediluvian caw had exhausted the fish in the days before Adam delved and Eve spun [span].
The Swindon Advertiser, Saturday, July 16, 1881.
A “Mares’ nest” a discovery imagined to be important but proving worthless – Collin’s Dictionary.
Trigonia, genus of mollusks that first appeared during the Jurassic period, which began about 208 million years ago. – Encyclopaedia Britannica
Radnor Street Cemetery 