There are, currently, some 125 memorials in the churchyard, most of which are either vertical or horizontal stones or table-tombs.
Mostly because of the ravages of our climate over many years and, to a lesser extent, through physical damage, the inscriptions on 25 (20%) of these are virtually obliterated, making recognition almost impossible without employing expensive modern technology. Many more would have been indecipherable without recourse to the Abbey Burial Registers and to previous inventories.
At the request of the former Vicar I have prepared a schedule of interments, arranged alphabetically by surname, of the 100 legible inscriptions.
These are followed by a column giving, usually, the date of death and age. A second column gives the burial date as shown in the registers and a third gives the burial date as recorded in the inappropriately named '1821' Collection (which actually include burials up to 40 years beyond that date) compiled by Sir Henry Phillips. The information in these two latter columns serves to augment and confirm the current visible inscriptions on surviving graves; where a series of digits on the latter are completely unreadable the omissions have been marked thus ... ...; if part of the text is missing on the graves but the information is obtainable elsewhere, e.g.. from previous inventories, the original inscription is quoted between square brackets, thus [ ]. The same indicator is used for three entries that are scheduled without grave numbers - these were included on an inventory made as recently as 10/15 years ago, but are no longer in evidence in the churchyard.
A plan of the graveyard has been prepared and is attached; it shows the approximate position of each memorial and the grave number quoted on the schedule. The numbering begins in front of the Abbey's South Wall (1-44), continues from the south-west corner of the churchyard (45-117) and ends with the triangular plot at the Abbey's South-west corner (118-125), thus facilitating the location of individual graves - which do not display any identification number.
With the rapid deterioration of monumental inscriptions in churchyards and cemeteries, a process accelerated by worsening air pollution, many local organisations have taken on the task of cataloguing them before the texts are finally obliterated.
In this county we have virtually a complete record of all existing graveyards, thanks mostly to the efforts in the past of members of the Wiltshire Family History Society. It is, nevertheless, a sobering thought that of the 147 graves listed by Sir Henry Phillips' team visiting Malmesbury around the middle of the last century, only 30 at extent and remain legible in our churchyard today.
As a sequel to this paper, arrangements to catalogue the memorials inside the Abbey will be made in due course - a task for the more inclement days.
Acknowledgements with thanks are due to Mike Lynch, the Abbey Verger, for the vigorous application of his scrubbing-brush to the surface of some of the more obstinate inscriptions to Jennifer Topham, secretary of the Malmesbury branch of the WFHS for her assistance in checking my transcription from microfiche and to the staff of Wiltshire Records Office for their co-operation.
Leonard Ing
September 1994
