The Streatfield Vault

[poliphilo]

You expect burial vaults to be locked.

And if they're not locked you expect them not to be burial vaults.

So, there I was in Chiddingstone churchyard looking at this...



And the door was a little ajar...

Maybe it's a fancy shed, full of gardening tools.

So I opened it.



Ah....

I went down the very steep stairs, turned left at the bottom and there- on racks- receding into the dark- were all these 18th and 19th century coffins, covered in velvet- which must once have been blue but is now the colour of rust. Very M.R. James. I didn't take any pictures because it seemed disrespectful.

Lets return to that second picture. The bust is Henry Streatfeild (sic) who died in 1747. His epitaph reads

A lover of all lawful liberty,
Dependent on no man,
True to his trust,
Just in his dealings,
Often obliging,
Never ungrateful,
Charm'd with retirement,
Delighted in planting,
His passions always followed by repentance.

I love that "often". He wasn't always obliging, just often. The last line is wonderful too.

Chiddingstone, by the way, is very, very pretty.  The whole village belongs to The National trust. Ah, Magnolia!

Comments

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

Lovely.

I'm also guessing that the most prevalent meaning of "passion" at that time was "anger." As in "he was in a towering passion" aka he was in a violent rage.

EDITED TO ADD: I believe the magnolia in the foreground may have been an American import -- a magnolia that arrived on England's shores courtesy of John and/or William Bartram. Neighbors of yours, in a way, separated by a century or so.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

I just fell down the Wiki and Google Images rabbit hole of the Streatfeilds. So many gorgeous portraits in the mid-1700s.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think passions is ambiguous- perhaps intentionally so. It's a word that covers a multitude of sins.

Well done, the Bartrams! I love magnolias. They're gorgeous.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I must go take a look.

[puddleshark.livejournal.com]

How wonderful!

I would never dare descend into a vault even if I did ever come across one that was unlocked... I hope any spirits there enjoyed the breath of spring air you brought down with you.

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

Noel Streatfeild must be a scion?

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

We seem to be a long way from magnolias flowering. Or else nobody grows them up here. In Middlesbrough tree are daffodils aplenty but here on the hills they are just beginning.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure. Wikipedia doesn't say.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I didn't linger.

A torch would have been good.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think it should be possible to grow magnolias in your part of the world- but I'm not sure.

Our daffodils have been flowering for several weeks now.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

Hey guess what! William Bartram was recorded as an "attender" at the Swedish Lutheran Church of St. James in Kingsessing!