Sandwich Kent England UK: St. Clement's Churchyard

One Chap's View by Don Eastwood

The request for this note arose from enquiries by visitors asking after their forebears and I now offer it simply as a base from which to build. Often the account of a memorial inscription is but my best interpretation of the marks on the stone. Many once elegant letterings have now become mere hieroglyphs - especially so in the case of numerals which should be treated with caution.

Proper enquiry into family history needs further research in other places to verify my version of these scripts for I am painfully aware that something confidently dismissed in the morning as illegible can suddenly be seen to be easily read by the light of a low afternoon sun. Such is the deterioration that I find the 197 good people remarked by William Boys in his massive History of Sandwich, as being remembered in St Clement’s Churchyard little over 200 years ago, I am today only able to recognise about 30. A pamphlet based on the subject of one of the more recent memorials is now available under a separate cover though I have not the time to tackle a second.

However if one’s concerns are more general, no matter what the interest to be found in those now resting here, there is more to old churchyards than the memorials. We can not offer the butts which again Boys suggests were in the churchyard in 1586 but for those prepared to look, be it just superficially, there is more even on the stones themselves than epitaphs. Having been brought in from elsewhere they are often of materials not found locally and provide alien habitats for plants, which might favour them over the naturally occurring rocks.

The conflicting concerns of persons interested in our churchyards are well documented. The genealogist would clean stones which the naturalist would leave untouched; the botanist sees the beauty of flower filled grass where the verger sees untidy weed strewn areas - he has still to understand a weed is a wild flower whose virtues he has yet to discover. I have therefore felt it right when reading inscriptions to respect the interests of others and been at pains in my examinations to disturb as little as possible the growths on the stones and I would urge others to do the same. It is too easy with slow-growing plants to do damage in moments which takes years to rectify.

There can be much to be seen in these places. Certainly some 15 years ago when I first became acquainted with it, it was a common sight in St Clement’s to see parents taking children through the long grass to show them the wildflowers, and slow worms and lizards were easy to find. Today it is a closed churchyard. Local Authority contractors undertake a specified number of mowing operations throughout the year and despite leaving certain areas where a wealth of crocuses appears, this must be a recipe for, at best, bland uniformity rather than conservation – a deftly wielded strimmer puts paid to a large patch of violets in seconds and shows little mercy to a rare specimen.

A checklist compiled in 1987 by a Mr Palmer of Tonbridge shows some of the plants in St Clement’s churchyard. It is not complete since it records only what was in evidence on one day in May, but it shows 28 species of lichen, 5 mosses, 5 grasses, and 26 flowering plants, without mentioning the various trees and shrubs. I make no apology for including a copy of his 1987 list following this introduction (Click Here). Needless to say, today the numbers of flowers are sadly much reduced but I note that over the past year Mr Jim Leach of Sandwich carried out a survey and despite claiming to be a non-botanist, has produced photographs of over 50 species, together with many of the trees and garden introductions.

Any loss of the flowers, of course, means a similar reduction in the invertebrates although an introduced Buddlia attracts up to 10 species of butterfly in some years and at least one can still find grey squirrels and hedgehogs in plenty, with the odd fox making its way through at night and common frogs invading from neighbouring gardens seem to make a living.

The trees are important in St Clement’s. The usual churchyard residents-yew, holly and bay - are to be found and there is a particularly fine Arbutus. The notable trees, though, are the limes: splendid trees, and beside one of the gates a large Pendent Silver Lime whose flowers in late summer smell particularly strongly, filling the whole churchyard and extending the season during which the scent of others is to be enjoyed, although it is to the misfortune of the local bee population. The storm in 1987, which devastated many sites caused little damage here. The only loss of note was a lime of about 80 feet, which was brought down and managed to fall without affecting any graves, simply demolishing part of a surrounding wall. Its great root bole was left in the ground when the trunk was removed and as it decayed proved a rich nursery for the larger Carabid beetles who were very apparent for some years later.

Among the trees, the birds - and again there are fewer species. Without presuming to offer a comprehensive list I have over the years of casually observing seen well over 40 different types either in or over the churchyard. To run across such pleasures as a pair of goldcrests, a family of long-tailed tits, or indeed as was seen a few years ago, a bee-eater, is asking fate to smile very kindly indeed on a single visit but who knows? Surprisingly too some, like the wren and the goldfinch, have nested here in spots one would think most unwise. I regret the decline and eventual loss from the limes of the flourishing rookery of some 30 or so nests, though this is happening in many places these days.

Despite the losses, I commend St Clement’s Churchyard to you. Take a seat in the Garden of Remembrance, surrounded at the appropriate time by a wealth of roses. Watch for the Rambling Rector or at other times look across to the daffodils, the bluebells or snowdrops and whilst you take a moment’s ease to ponder the lives of those now remembered here, sextons and seamen, Coxswains and Captains, perhaps the people whose memorials show their remains to be far off in outposts of the Empire, the man from H.M.Customs in Gravesend, or the local lady so well thought of by her neighbours that they had an additional stone placed on her grave to mark the fact - look around and enjoy what may be found even today still growing and living within these walls.

D.E . January 1998

REPRINT 2000

Since the first copies of this note were circulated, the churchyard – and its memorials – have continued to suffer the ministrations of the council contractors as are alluded to above. However, of later years what has to me become a redeeming feature has been the greatly enhanced display for a few weeks in late Spring of the Queen Anne’s Lace in full flower – cow parsley to the more mundane – always with its attendant insect life. I have seen many visitors direct their cameras away from the architectural attractions of the place in order to record this feature. ...

D.E. June 2000

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