Sentimental Sunday – Completion of Restoration of my ancestors’ Table Top Tombs

Having been away from my blog for such a very long time, which was never meant, looking after my 104 and a half year old Aunt has taken over our lives so I just haven’t been able to post here as I wanted to.

Today I had some wonderful news so I thought it was the perfect opportunity to post on my blog once again.  I can’t stop smiling 🙂

I am placing this under the Blogging Prompt of Sentimental Sunday because to me this is very sentimental.

I am sooooooooooooooooooooo delighted, excited, thrilled, happy and all sorts of things in that mood 🙂  🙂  🙂 Please bear with me while I explain and add lots of photos!! Many of you know I have been researching my family tree (for almost thirty years now) and have my Read family back to the 1500s. Many of my ancestors are buried in what I call the Read Plot at Nether Winchendon, Buckinghamshire and in the plot are three tabletop tombs. One contains my 6 x great grandfather Cozens Read and his wife Elizabeth, another contains his son William Read, William’s Wife Mary, their daughter Mary and Mary’s husband John Moores. The third tabletop tomb contains another of Cozens Read’s sons, Michael Read and his wife Martha.

A few years ago, in 2007, my other half Paul and I visited the Plot and cleared and tidied up and repaired these and other Read gravestones – pictures of this follow. Two or three years or so ago, William Read’s tomb collapsed and I was informed that the church was going to restore it. I tried to get grants for restoring it but that took such a long time, waiting waiting waiting for decisions and in the meantime the church and the villagers managed to organise a Lottery Heritage grant.

Last year I was told they were going ahead with the restoration and asked my thoughts about it. I was very pleased of course. Anyway, today, I found out that yesterday the restoration is complete! They have restored all three table top tombs and here is a link to the BBC news item about it – They even mention me!!!! 🙂
http://www.bbc.co.uk/n…/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-32829542

I am thrilled because they have found that Cozens Read has six children buried with him and his wife, these are those of their 20 children who did not survive to adulthood and I can find no burial record for them apart from that of their first child. I have searched for these children for years thinking they must be buried elsewhere as they are not in the Nether Winchendon parish register.

Now I know exactly where they are! These children were buried long before Cozens Read was buried in 1783 (the news item has the date wrong, they say 1720)!

I am so excited by all this as it means so very much to me 🙂

Here are some of the photos we took in 2007, before and after pics on that day, which can now be compared with the pics in the BBC News item.

This is how the table top tombs looked when we arrived that day in 2007.

 

This is William Read’s table top tomb. This one was the worst one for needing to be repaired and cleared of the plantlife and even small tree that was growing from the inside!  This is the tomb that eventually collapsed a few years later.

 

This is Michael Read’s tomb which contains him and his wife Martha.

 

Here lies Cozens Read with his wife Elizabeth and as I have just discovered, six of his children.

 

And here is how it all looked that day, after we had been clearing, cleaning and repairing the table top tombs and some of the graves.

I’m so so so so so happy and very very grateful to the villagers who took such an interest in long-deceased members of my family. So thrilled 🙂 🙂 🙂