Ashwell United Reformed Church

zoom

zoom

Ashwell United Reformed Churchyard - 2004c

Jackie Embury

zoom

AURChurchyard plan

David Short

Finding your Ancestors in our Churchyard!

Pruning of trees and strenuous efforts by church members during the year have revealed several areas in our churchyard which have not seen the light of day for many a year!  Graves once concealed by enveloping yew trees can now be found more easily and stones covered in years of growth of ivy have been carefully cleared so that the inscriptions are visible to any who might wish to find long-dead relations as part of their family history researches.

Thanks to research carried out in the 1980s by David Short and two students, we have a plan of the graves in the churchyard and a record of their inscriptions.  Together with similar maps and records from all the other burial places in Ashwell, this information was published in a booklet by the Hertfordshire Family History Society in 1986.

The earliest burial in the churchyard recorded with an inscription, is of Eliza Kirbyshire who died in 1828 aged 2 years.   There are a number of gravestones where the inscription is too worn to read, and several more graves that are just grassy mounds with no memorial, so it is possible that there are older graves than those named above.

Here are the family names of people buried in our churchyard taken from David Short’s research, the ones in italic print have been added by Jackie Embury taken from church records plots unknown:

Plots relating to David Short’s plan:

Adkins             25, 34, 38

Albone            33

Angell              55

Bailey              19, 46, 56, 62

Ball                  14

Barlow

Barritt             4

Banks              Ashes

Bonnett           28

Bray                46, 47, 49, 54, 57

Broad              62

Bryant             1, 27, 37, 43, 65 and Ashes

Burton            possibly 71 or 72

Chalkley

Chapman        14, 43

Christy            15, 16, 60, 61, 74

Clark(e)           52

Coulthard        59

Covington       51

Craft                59

Dumville

Edwards          63

Fabb                44

Flitton             5

Frost                39, 40

Garratt

Gentle

Goodchild       14

Goss                17

Hall                  30

Harradine

Haylock           31

Hoye               38

Huffer

Huggins           62

Humphrey      29, 41

Izzard              73

Kirbyshire       15, 16

Langan

Laughland       Ashes

Lawmon          35

Lee                  20, 32  

Lloyd               

London

Mayse

Mole

Moore             21

Oliver              3

Pack                18, 59, 63, 76

Parcell             19

Payne

Perkins            58

Pickett             11

Picking

Pitty                6, 7, 8, 9

Radford           53

Revels             Ashes

Ripshire          17

Scruby             14

Smith

Simmons         Ashes

Simons            21

Stewart           48

Strickland       22, 36

Taylor              10

Thorne            19, 74

Tilbrook          42

Watts

Waldock(duck) 2, 23, 26, 59

Wayment

Webb              13, 45

Webber           Ashes

Westrope        24, 75

Widdowson    20

Wood

Worboys 

There are 76 surnames and 239 burials/ashes recorded in this churchyard

Next time you pass by our churchyard, why not stop and spend a few quiet moments away from the hurly-burly of village life?

Amended Jul 2021