Description
Available as a CD Version or PDF Download (download is without photographs)
(approx. 360) of Memorial Inscriptions where available are only on the CD version, Not the download version (due to Web Site upload constraints).
Survey of Memorials in St Andrew’s Church and Churchyard, Miserden.
Introduction.
This database of Memorials is based mainly on their physical inspection and photographic recording over the 12 month period between July 2014 and July 2015. However, it does also refer to four other documents.
1. A hand-written set of indexes of Baptisms, Marriages and Burials at Miserden from 1574 to 1974 which is currently held by the church. I understand that this was probably prepared by a church-warden who extracted the information from the Parish registers. They are remarkable documents, neatly written and organised by date and surname – not a simple task before computerisation. Where relevant I have given the burial date from this index as well as the date of death from the gravestone. They don’t always tally and researchers should always check the original Parish registers to minimise any transcription errors.
2. The “Record of Church furnishings” for St Andrew’s Church prepared 1995-97 by The National Association of Decorative and Fine Arts Societies (NADFAS). This provides enormous detail of the Memorials inside the church, including the stained glass windows. A few of the older inscriptions are in Latin and, in most of these cases, an English translation is contained in the NADFAS report.
3. Ralph Bigland’s “Historical, Monumental, and Genealogical Collections relative to the County of Gloucester”. This was first published at the end of the eighteenth century but was reissued in the 1990s by Bristol & Gloucestershire Archaeological Society. Three pages of this relate to the Miserden inscriptions and they, in theory, list the gravestones existing in the churchyard c1790, but it appears far from comprehensive: there are many current gravestones which pre-date 1790 but which are not listed by Bigland. However there are many listed in his book which no longer exist and, for the sake of completeness, I have included all these in this database. For copyright reasons, in these cases, I have only used the name and year of death (supplemented by the burial date from the register index) and researchers will need to refer to Bigland to see what, if any, further information is available.
Tim Randles. June 2016
