Churchyard monuments

Churchyard monuments are the most common type of listed structure at risk from deterioration. To help preserve them, a new grant scheme is being launched in Somerset to help with the cost of essential conservation work.

Why do we preserve churchyard monuments?

Churchyard monuments are an important part of our architectural and historic heritage and contribute to the familiar landscape of many villages and towns. There are over 1,000 listed churchyard monuments in the county including chest tombs, headstones and ancient crosses, and it's estimated that as many as half of them may be in need of repair.

Conservation work to such structures is in general inexpensive, but many parishes struggle to cope with maintaining the main church building let alone additional churchyard structures. Some monuments, therefore, deteriorate to a state where carved inscriptions and decorative detail become less visible and in some cases structural collapse ensues.
 

Churchyard monument grant scheme

Our support for the Somerset Churchyard Monument Grant Scheme enables essential conservation work to be carried out to many of these monuments to halt further deterioration. The scheme is also supported by St Andrew's Conservation Trust, Somerset County Council and Mendip District Council.

We have been running the scheme in South Somerset for five years, but due to the success of it, the scheme has been extended to cover the whole of Somerset (with the exception of North Somerset).  

We have given grants to 22 monuments in South Somerset. We have removed invasive vegetation and dismantled and reconstructed unstable chest tombs. John Bucknall, architect to Ilchester, Podimore and Limington, has expressed that the scheme has been immensely effective in repairing seven monuments, which could never have been tackled otherwise.

As well as supporting repair work, the grant scheme also ensures that the carved inscriptions, which are an important source of historical and genealogical information, are recorded and deposited with the Somerset County Records Office and the Somerset and Dorset Family History Society.