Original Great War grave markers in Sussex

[coldstream]

I recently had the good fortune to visit the National Trust property called Batemans in Sussex which was once the home of the famous authour Rudyard Kipling.

After the visit my other half and I stopped in the village of Burwash which is nearby and decided to visit the church.

Inside the porch we discovered a series of original wooden Great War grave markers some with carved details and many with small galavanised metal strips impressed with the soldiers details.

We questioned the Rector of the church who stated that she believed that all these markers were collected by Rudyard Kipling and placed within the church in eternal memory of the local village men who were killed.

Ofcourse Kipling spent many weeks trying to locate the remains of his son Jack and I would assume these markers were collected then.

Both a film and a book are available detailing his search for his son.

A short distance from the church is the village memorial where all the Fallens details can be found.

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Another view.

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Corporal S Taylor 5th Royal Sussex (Pioneers) KIA 22.9.17.

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Pte T Parks 5th Royal Sussex (Pioneers) KIA 15.9.17.

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R Langridge Royal Navy HMS Ganges.

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The War Memorial near the church.

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A very poweful reminder of the sacrifices made during the Great War where small villages like Burwash lost huge numbers of men of the same generation.

[Thomas Symmonds]

Powerful and poignant.

Thanks for posting the photos. The crosses look in good nick. From the wire mesh it seems the curators have taken care of any bird problems.

Would anyone know of any other collection of original grave markers ? Perhaps not even specific to the two world wars ?

regards

Thomas

[Guest Rick Research]

:Cat-Scratch: The roof is completely open along the overhang above the stone walls? Never encountered that style church architecture before. Must be horrible with winter winds howling in! (No wonder my ancestors left the Norfolk coast!)

I had a photo years ago in the Time Before Computers of these sort of temporary grave markers. It had been taken in pouring rain, calf high mud, burials ongoing in the background.

I do hope Kipling REPLACED those accumulated markers rather than just pulled them up....

[peter monahan]

I do hope Kipling REPLACED those accumulated markers rather than just pulled them up....

Rick

I should think he probably did. All those crosses will have been replaced by CWGC stones, so recognizable from all the Allied cemeteries in Europe.

Kipling was in fact one of the persons instrumental in the formation of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which is now of course responsible for the maintenance of graves of soldiers from Commonwealth countries killed in WWI, WWII, Korea, and many conflicts.

Kipling's efforts, and the 3 volume History of the Irish Guards he wrote were a memorial to his son Jack, lost on the Western Front while serving with the Guards.

And, truth being stranger than fiction, Jack Kipling was found not many years ago. He had apparently taken shelter from shelling in the cellar of a wrecked house, where his body was buried in 1917(?) and discovered by workmen on a building project within the last decade.. The ID was made based on the uniform and rank and a half-written letter in a monogrammed cigarette case.

Sadly, Kipling lost an infant daughter as well, to illness, during the 2-3 years when he lived in America. It was after that he moved to Sussex and wrote many stories of rural England - including the Puck of Pook's Hill tales. His stories from that period (1890's) focused on the sturdy English yeomen, loyal, hard working, phlegmatic and very suspicious of 'foreigners', 'foreign' being defined as 'from further than 5 miles away, from any city, or having arrived in England after 1066.

Edited June 27, 2009 by peter monahan

[Guest Rick Research]

"loyal, hard working, phlegmatic and very suspicious of 'foreigners', 'foreign' being defined as 'from further than 5 miles away, from any city, or having arrived in England after 1066."

Characteritics to this day of old line New Englanders. :cheers:

[peter monahan]

"loyal, hard working, phlegmatic and very suspicious of 'foreigners', 'foreign' being defined as 'from further than 5 miles away, from any city, or having arrived in England after 1066."

Characteritics to this day of old line New Englanders.

One of Kipling's finest examples of this sort is in a longish story about a young American couple (rich) who rent and then buy an empty estate in rural Sussex. It turns out they have accidently re-acquired the home of an emigrant ancestor of his. The housekeeper, without a word to them, has written to New England, where they're from - they figure she doen't know how to read - and gets the staunch villigers in Maine to verify their story. So they are "our kind". On Sunday of the week they buy it they are met at the village church door by the verger and escorted to the 'family' pew and afterwards the local nobs, who have never addressed them before, invite them to lunch because "You're one of us.", unlike the stinking rich 'merchant' down the road, who's lived there 20 years and has never been spoken to by anyone! And as they leave church the village lines up to curtsy and tug their forelocks to the new master and his mistress (missus). Very chauvinist, very Kipling, very very pre-WWI British!

A colleague at school is "from Prince Edward Island": not born there, never lived there but has parents and grandparents who did. So she's an Islander. Her nearest neighbour down there (and in Ontario too) has lived there 30+ years but she , and her kids, are "from aways", which really frosts her butt.

Anybody who talks about friendliness in small towns has never ever lived in one! Sure, we're polite to most everybody and even helpful, but if you don't know who a man's granfer was you can't know what kind of man he is and so don't trust him with local gossip or sordid secrets. Gotta love it :cheers:

[Guest Rick Research]

"Anybody who talks about friendliness in small towns has never ever lived in one! Sure, we're polite to most everybody and even helpful, but if you don't know who a man's granfer was you can't know what kind of man he is and so don't trust him with local gossip or sordid secrets. Gotta love it."

Ayuh. The eternal village endures.

Anyone who cannot immediately place every one of the crosses in that church in their own family or the (very few) non-blood relations-to-connections every Local family accretes in its existence (used to work for, almost married, great-granduncle had a feud with over... etc etc) is from Away.

Scary to Big City Folk who live in buildings for years without speaking to or knowing the names of their neighbors, but a source of strength for us rustics. :ninja: