War Graves

Whenever we take the footpath through the back of the churchyard we pass next to a war grave:




Inscription reads:
42564,  Private J W Turner, Durham Light Infantry, 2nd May 1918, Age 34
It looks a bit unkempt in the photo but has been tidied up recently.

War graves are cared for by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. A few years ago I saw a person from the Commission cleaning the headstone. This got me to look a bit further in to the CWGC. Their web site lists the war graves they maintain around the world, where they are and who is buried in each. According to the list there are four in our local churchyard.

On a nice sunny afternoon a few days ago we had a wander round the churchyard. I looked at every headstone in the newer section and those I could get near in the old part but so far only found one other war grave:



Here the inscription reads:
7615923, Private S A Forman, Royal Army Ordnance Corps, 12th March 1943, Age 21.

I will make another attempt at finding the other two on some future occasion.

As well as the actual graves there is also a memorial to all those from the village who lost their lives in the 1914-18 war:





The village was much smaller then.
The 1911 census returning just 280.
Now there are estimated to be around 1,000.

While I was looking at the headstones two others caught my eye.
This is the oldest person's grave I have spotted so far:



This one in the older part of the churchyard is almost buried under nettles and covered in lichen.
I was particularly drawn by the carving:



There is a wild variation in colour as some were taken with the 'full spectrum' camera.