Norfolk Epitaphs

Not like Egyptian tyrants consecrate,
Unmixed with others shall my dust remain;
But mold'ring, blending, melting into earth
Mine shall give form and colour to the Rose,
And while its vivid blossoms cheer Mankind,
Its perfumed odours shall ascend to Heaven.

Humphry Repton, Aylsham

I with seven others went
Our fellow man to save
A heavy wave upset our boat
We met a watery grave

John Easter, Blakeney

All you that do this place pass bye
Remember death for you will dye.
As you are now even so was I
And as I am so shall you be.
Thomas Gooding here do staye
Wayting for God's judgement day.

Thomas Gooding, Norwich Cathedral

This stone is erected
To mark the burial place of
JOHNSON JEX
Who died January 5th 1852 aged 73 years
Born in obscurity
He passed his days at Letheringsett as
A village blacksmith.
By the force of an original and inventive genius
Combined with indomitable perseverance
He mastered some of the greatest difficulties of science
Advancing from the forge to the crucible
And from the horse-shoe to the chronometer:
Acquiring by mental labour and philosophic research
A vast and varied amount of
Mechanical skill and general knowledge.
He was a man of scrupulous integrity and moral worth:
But regardless of wealth
And sensible to the voice of fame
He lived and died a scientific anchorite

Johnson Jex, Letheringsett

Against his will
Here lies George Hill,
Who from a cliff
Fell down quite stiff

St Peter and St Paul, Salle

Here lies a man who was Knott born
His father was Knott before him.
He lives Knott, and he did Knott die,
Yet underneath this stone Doth lie.
Knott christened, Knott begot.
And here lies, and yet was Knott.

Reputedly St Peter Mancroft, Norwich

To die I must
To stay I'd rather
To go I must
I know not whither.

Sarah Bear, All Saints Marsham

Keep thy foot when
Beneath our feet and o'er
Our head
Is equal warning given
Beneath us live the
Countless dead
Above us is the heaven

O gently gently shouldst
Thou speak
And softly softly tread
Where in the church's
Peaceful shade
With solemn words the
Dead are laid
In their last lowly bed.

Hassingham churchyard

My name speakes what I was and am and have
A Bedding Field a peece of earth a grave
Where I expect vntill my sovle shall bring
Vnto the field and everlasting spring
For rayse and rayse ovt of the earth & slime
God did the first and will the second time
Obiit Die Maii 1637

Elizabetha Bedingfold, St. Giles, Norwich

Here lyes None, one worse than None for very nought
And because None of None to thee, O Christ gives nought.

Mr None, Wymondham Abbey

Will Gilman heere lies buried in dust
Who thirty-two yeares was a servant just
To masters twow, the second whereof came
First in his armes to church to get a name
And least his name should with his body dye
His master heere has placed his memorye.

Will Gilman, St. Andrew's Burlingham

In Heaven at home, O blessed change!
Who while I was on earth was strange.

Roger le Strange, St Mary's Old Hunstanton

Norfolk Poems

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