King’s Lynn – King’s Lynn Minster (Rows of Gravestones)

I’m not sure that I’ve seen gravestones placed in neat rows around the edge of the churchyard quite like this before. I imagine it was something done in the 1970s or 1980s when they were moved here from around the churchyard. Not that much can be done about it now, but this still always feels like a sad decision to me as moving the stones means that they site of the original burial is potentially lost if no clear records have been kept.

However, there was likely a reason behind it at some point in the past, sometimes it’s to make the churchyard easier to keep maintained, sometimes it’s to stop gravestones falling on people, although in this case, the flooding to King’s Lynn may have caused some damage.

Fortunately, some gravestones have remained in situ in the churchyard and a number of these are particularly interesting (more of these in another post).