Grave matters

Today I am delighted to present another Blog Post from the digital pen and camera of our member Professor Gillian Black, of the Department of Law at Edinburgh University. 

Heraldry in Graveyards

 One lockdown occupation we have enjoyed has been exploring various graveyards. It started with regular walks to our local cemetery and, as the restrictions have eased, we’ve been able to venture further afield. On these expeditions, I’ve been keeping an eye open for funerary heraldry, and have recorded these on a Twitter account, Scottish Graveyard Heraldry (@SHeraldry). Arguably one of the most poignant and significant uses of heraldry is to mark the final resting place of the bearer, and we have seen some impressive examples on our travels:

The grave of Sir Thomas Dawson Brodie Bt, in the Dean Cemetery, Edinburgh. The arms are: Argent on a chevron gules between three mullets azure, a galley proper, within a bordure engrailed of the second.

However, there are also problems with recording coats of arms on gravestones, including the undeniable problem that the person whose arms are represented, and who would be best placed to comment on the precision of their rendering in stone, is of course no longer around to oversee their accurate reproduction on the gravestone. Aside from this, I’ve come up against three specific challenges when tracking down graveyard heraldry.

The first, and perhaps the most obvious, is that stone does not show the metals and tinctures. This lovely rendition of the arms of Kenneth Charles Corsar (Glencorse Cemetery) is bereft of the gules, or and argent recorded in the Lyon Register:

 The lack of colour can be particularly problematic where a change in colour is relied on for differencing. However, some well-informed (or well-instructed) stonemasons do use the recognised system of hatching to mark the different metals and tinctures, as with these arms on the grave of Hugh Mosman (the Grange Cemetery, Edinburgh): Azure a chevron between three oak trees Or:

 

 The Azure here represented by the horizontal lines, while the Or is shown by the dots.

A second hazard for heraldry spotters in graveyards is the inevitable effect of weathering and time on the stone. One example is the arms of Sir James Gardiner Baird, 7^th Bt of Saughton Hall, here impaled with those of his wife, Henrietta Mary Wauchope (the Grange Cemetery, Edinburgh), where the bottom third of the otherwise vivid shield has been lost:

  Erosion also does its work, here blurring out some of the detail on these arms of Gilbert Laurie Finlay (the Grange Cemetery, Edinburgh):  

A third issue is the potential for “faux heraldry”, where the grieving family or creative stonemason has decided to add something “shield-like” to the stone. There seems to be a very real chance that this shield, bearing a bend sinister, found on a Stephenson grave in the Grange Cemetery, is decorative rather than representative, unless anyone can shed any light on it? 

 And to finish, one of my favourite discoveries so far: this wonderful crest from the gravestone of George Henry Sutherland and family, at Eddleston Parish Kirk, showing a somewhat disdainful cat: Sans Peur indeed!