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Grave Goings-On

Grave insult!
By Emma Goodfellow

Pigs have rampaged over graves, uprooting grass and floral tributes, at a Penryn cemetery.

A large area of the new Glebe Cemetery, which was built on land behind St Gluvias Church after the church cemetery became full up, has been affected.

Penryn widow Carol Pellow, from Saracen Place, could not believe her eyes when she went to the cemetery to lay flowers on her late husband Bobby's grave and found that the turf had been turned over and flowers were scattered everywhere.

Other graves disturbed by the pigs include that of popular Penryn journalist Vicky Annear and one belonging to day-old baby Shane Michael Ockwell, who died on December 18, 2005. A soft toy teddy bear that had been left by the side of the baby's grave had been left muddy and dishevelled after it was trodden on.

However, the grave of former Cornish Linen Services worker Paul Caddy, who had been buried just a few days before, had not been touched.

Shocked, Mrs Pellow complained to the church before being told that the land was owned and maintained by Penryn town council. She was then informed by the council that the cause of the disruption was pigs that had got loose and rampaged over the site.

It is understood that this is not the first time that the pigs have been loose on cemetery grounds. :shock:

Mrs Pellow said: "It's upsetting, very upsetting. It looked like a bombsite. I came by myself, as I thought I'd lay some flowers on the grave. I just walked in, saw it and walked out again - I couldn't believe it. I couldn't think straight. It was awful - horrendous."

She described seeing the cemetery in such a state as "terrible." She is still grieving for her husband Bobby, who died on Easter Sunday this year, aged 62.

She was so upset that that she contacted her close friend, Carol Smith, to ask if she would accompany her back to the cemetery.

Mrs Smith said: "It's awful - horrendous really. They should keep the pigs under lock and key, more secure. I think the council will have to get new turf for the cemetery. It's a shame."

Initially, Mrs Pellow thought that vandals had caused the mess, before finding out that it had been pigs, when she reported the damage. It is not clear exactly where the pigs came from.

Kevin Paul, Penryn town clerk, told the Packet that he had been informed of the damage on June 26 and had asked the council's contractor to restore it as a matter of priority. However, when the contractor went to carry out the work on the Friday, he found that the turf had mysteriously been re-laid and grass seed had even been sown. Mr Paul said he had "absolutely no idea" who had done the work.

He continued: "The long and short of it is that the work appears to have been done. Somebody has taken it seriously. There wasn't any damage to the headstone. There were a couple of grave areas that were trodden on, but weren't badly stirred up. But obviously people were upset that the grave area had been mauled around like that."

Mr Paul said that this was the second time that the pigs had been found on the site. On the first occasion there had only been a small amount of damage, but this time the damage was more extensive.

"The first time we accepted it was a one-off, accidental, unfortunate thing. The second time is, to say the very least, careless. Certainly if it happens again my council are going to be extremely upset and we'll probably look to take some action," he added

http://www.falmouthpacket.co.uk/news/fp ... insult.php
 
A more concise report:

GOOD SAMARITAN MYSTERY
09:00 - 05 July 2007

Unknown Good Samaritans stepped in to clear up in the middle of the night after a cemetery was vandalised - by pigs. Penryn Cemetery grounds were torn up twice before a visitor spotted the porcine invaders rooting among the tombstones and informed the police.

Now it has emerged that a sow and her piglets had absconded from a nearby farm and made themselves comfortable at the burial ground.

The town council, which maintains the site, got its contractor to go there at 6am to ensure bereaved relatives and friends would not be faced with the mess when visiting the graves. But he arrived to discover the job had been done overnight.

Town clerk Kevin Paul said no one had been in touch to claim responsibility.

He added: "It happened twice. The first time it was just a small area and our contractor put it right. The second time it was a bigger area near the new graves and about four or five hours' work. I'm not sure if it was the lady who owns the pigs or a group of people who have family members buried there and got together. It's bizarre but the important thing is to maintain the dignity of the cemetery."

http://tinyurl.com/2q5vll

curioser and curioser! 8)
 
She was then informed by the council that the cause of the disruption was pigs that had got loose and rampaged over the site....It is not clear exactly where the pigs came from.
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How far do domestic pigs roam? Especially when they've made the same trip at least twice?
 
Remains of Ceausescu exhumed
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/bre ... ing15.html
Wed, Jul 21, 2010

The graves of Romania's former communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena were dug up today to check whether they were truly buried there, their son-in-law said.

Ceausescu ruled Romania from 1965 until he and Elena were captured and shot down by firing squad in 1989 after fleeing mass protests in Bucharest, marking the fall of communism in the southeast European country.

The execution took place at an army base near the town of Targoviste, and the bodies were buried without fanfare, causing some to doubt whether the graves in Bucharest really contain their remains.

"The exhumation takes place today and we're taking samples of the remains," Mircea Opran, the husband of the Ceausescus' late daughter Zoia, told television station Realitatea. Early morning TV footage showed the excavation as it was going on.

"The samples will be taken for tests and the rest will be buried," Opran said."I don't know what will happen if it is discovered that the Ceausescus are not in these graves. Probably we will sue the Romanian state."

However, Opran said after the exhumation he tended to believe the remains were indeed those of the former communist dictator and his wife, who ruled the country with an iron fist using the feared former secret police Securitate.

He said he saw bullet holes in the clothes they found in Ceausescu's grave.

"The mystery is not elucidated. After what I saw, I tend to believe they are them. But until the DNA test is finished, I do not have a 100 per cent confirmation, I am not 100 per cent convinced."

Forensic experts estimate it could take weeks or months for the DNA test results to be completed, pending on the quality of samples taken from the graves.

Reuters
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If anyone can suggest a better place for a 'buried alive' story feel free.

This is :shock: :shock: :shock:

Woman 'escaped after being tied up and buried in box'

A woman was shot with an electric stun gun, bound and gagged and then buried alive in a box after her partner got "bored" with her, a jury has been told.

Michelina Lewandowska, 27, was taken to woods and buried in a shallow grave in May, Leeds Crown Court heard.

Miss Lewandowska escaped from the box and flagged down a passing car.

Her partner, Marcin Kasprzak, 25, of Penistone Road, and Patryk Borys, 18, of Rashcliffe Hill Road, both Huddersfield, deny attempted murder.

Prosecuting, Jonathan Sharp said: "In a nutshell, this case is about a young man who got bored with his partner, the mother of his child, and he decided to get rid of her."
'Shallow grave'

The barrister said the victim was attacked with a 300,000 volt Taser stun gun, bound and gagged with tape and "imprisoned" in a box.

He added: "He and his friend imprisoned her in a box, drove her to a wooded area where it was unlikely she would be found, and there dug a shallow grave and buried her alive."

The court heard that 25-year-old Mr Kasprzak told his partner that she was not as good-looking as the girls he saw at the gym.

Jurors heard he would go out with friends, sometimes staying out all night, rather than spending time with her.

He was thinking about starting a relationship with another woman and had changed his Facebook status to single, the prosecutor said.
Computer box

He said things came to a head in May this year when Mr Kasprzak used a 300,000-volt Taser on his partner and recruited his friend Mr Borys, 18, to help.

He said: "It is right to say the stun gun did not have the effect it was advertised. Michelina was not paralysed."

He said she was put in a computer box and it was taped up securely. Two holes were left to allow air in.

He said the defendants dug a hole big enough to take the box in countryside near Huddersfield.

He added: "They carried Michelina, sealed in the box, up the hill, placed her in the hole, and then piled earth both around and on top of the box. They found a large branch, weighing some 40kg (88lb) and placed it across the box."

"Michelina was not unconscious and she was able to, with great difficulty, get herself out of the box and the earth covering and surrounding it."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-16038931
 
I feel compelled to mention that while being buried alive once may be regarded as a misfortune, to be buried alive twice looks like carelessness.
 
Cambridge's Mill Road Cemetery tombs 'used to sleep in'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-ca ... e-20891185

The Mill Road Cemetery is grade II listed

People are moving the lids from tombs in a Cambridge cemetery so they can sleep in them for the night, police have said.

The cemetery is between Mill Road and Norfolk Street.

PC Alan Tregilgas of Cambridgeshire Police said in a statement that in some cases "tombstone lids have been pushed off so they can sleep inside them".

A spokeswoman for the cemetery said she had not seen any evidence of people sleeping in the graves.

Maintained by Cambridge City Council, the cemetery was purchased in 1847 for use by 13 parishes as extensions to their already over crowded graveyards.

The site is grade II listed on the English Heritage register of parks, gardens and cemeteries and has a number of listed monuments.

'Down on luck'
PC Tregilgas said: "It is not unusual to find drunken persons sleeping in this area."

The Reverend Margaret Widdess, secretary of the committee that represents the parishes, said: "The cemetery is open to the public and that includes people who are down on their luck.

"Sadly, graves are sometimes vandalised, but there has never been evidence that this is linked to the people sleeping rough in the cemetery."

Ms Widdess said many people used the cemetery, including "people who are drinkers, drug takers or who are homeless".

She added: "We have never seen any evidence of the heavy masonry lids of the graves being shifted to allow people to sleep in them.

"If it gets to the point where members of the public are feeling harassed or unsafe then we work with the police and the council."
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Came across this old photo of an apparent grave robber this morning,

12715251_1520015681635181_5336260514652933674_n.jpg


The original caption read, Simon Kracht, 1870s.
And after searching that name online I found this,

http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/OWENS/2003-03/1047253414

''LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Simon Kracht is buried in Cave Hill Cemetery,
allegedly amid graves he robbed in cahoots with the University of
Louisville Medical School.

"We claim him," said Tom Owen, an associate archivist at the
university. "But we no longer steal bodies."

Nineteenth-century medical schools often lacked fresh corpses for
dissection. Schools routinely bought bodies, no questions asked, from
grave robbers - shady characters known as "resurrectionists."

Usually, resurrectionists were criminals. But Kracht was on the
university payroll in the 1860s and 1870s, pulling double duty as
custodian and body snatcher.''
 
escargot1 said:
I feel compelled to mention that while being buried alive once may be regarded as a misfortune, to be buried alive twice looks like carelessness.
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My grandfather was terrified of being buried alive, so much so that he ordered my dad to cut his jugular before he was buried, he didn't do it though.
 
Solar panel again stolen from New Mexico boy's grave site

SAN ACACIA, N.M. (AP) — A solar panel placed at a grave site of a 5-year-old boy who was scared of the dark has been stolen for a second time.

KRQE-TV in Albuquerque reports (http://goo.gl/6VhUDm) that thieves recently took the solar panel from the resting place of Nico Chavez at the San Acacia Cemetery near Socorro. The solar panel powered lights around the grave.

...

The family installed it because Nico was afraid of the dark.

The family said this isn't the first time something has been stolen from Nico's grave. A few years ago, someone stole his piggy bank.
Click to expand...

SOURCE: https://www.yahoo.com/news/solar-panel-again-stolen-mexico-boys-grave-070433196.html

:eek: Piggy bank?!? ...
 
FelixAntonius said:
Mystery grave

A few villages away from me, a new "unauthorised" grave has been found in the local grave yard!!!!

From the "Biggleswade Chronicle" of 22nd November 2002:-

Mystery grave may have to be dug up.

An apparently unauthorised grave in Gamlingay may have to be dug up to find out whose body lies within.

Checks with local undertakers and churches have left Gamlingay Parish Council none the wiser as to whom has been buried without permission in the village cemetery.

If the registrar's paper-work checks draw another blank the grave will have to be dug to check for a name plate on the coffin.

If there is no name on the coffin, it will have to be opened.

Parish clerk Lesley Mayne says it is a professionally dug grave. She is working with the coroner to solve the mystery.

Mrs Mayne said: "Whoever is in there has a family. It is a pity really."
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Sounds as though they're dying to get in there.
 
There is a book The Diary of a Resurrectionist 1811-12 published in 1896.

https://archive.org/details/diaryofresurrect00bailrich

I found a copy in a hospital library twenty five years ago.... & well worth a read.

Another book is:- Death, Dissection & the Destitute by Ruth Richardson, published about 1988. Her thesis was that if you died in the workhouse your body was anatomised!!! Which she considered, was why people had a fear of the work house.

This was not something I could subscribe to, as at the time I had access to some Hertfordshire workhouse records & in their case, this did not seem to be happening, although I accept that records can be faked

Some of it has been published by the Hertfordshire Record Society as:- Volume XXIV: The Diary of Benjamin Woodcock, Master of the Barnet Union Workhouse, 1836–1838

More here, about the publication, but not the text: http://www.hrsociety.org.uk/publication_index.html

It was the transition period from parish workhouses to Union (of parishes) Workhouses.

One section I remember, was when two of the female workhouse inmates, who were laying out a body asked the porter for a glass of gin & were refused, only for the workhouse master to later reprimanded the porter for refusing their request.
 
Kondoru said:
BTW, have any of you been to see the bones in the crypt at Hythe, Kent? its an example of where the churchyard was cleared in medieval times, and the skulls and femurs stored in the crypt. (a scenario much more common on the continent than here) if you are ever in that area, do see it, there is a petty charge but its well worth it.

(if only for the treppaning)
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Intruders have stolen 21 ancient human skulls from a church in Kent.


The remains are believed to be around 700 years old, and detectives are appealing for information to help get them back to St Leonard’s Church in Hythe.


They believe the haul was taken between 4pm on Sunday July 15 and 10.40am on Monday.

https://metro.co.uk/2018/07/18/ancient-human-skulls-stolen-crypt-kent-7733395/
 
Ghost In The Machine said:
Wish this link still pointed to the article. This town in Illinois was named after my mum's ancestors/relatives who emigrated there in 1830 - the family came from here in Yorkshire. I'm hoping that's not one of my relatives' graves!
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Wayback has the original page archived. No mention of which cemetery was involved.

Looks like he and his descendants were buried in Fernwood.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/41647611/john-roodhouse

Must be cool to have a town named after oneself!
 
Yay! Was hoping that wasn't any of our's! His mum was my great aunt x 4 or 5, I forget. And his dad, my great uncle on another line of the family x 4 or 5. And his mum's first husband also a grt uncle x whatever on yet another line. Who said Yorkshire farmers are inbred? Not sure how a load of methodist Yorkshirefolk managed to get a town named after them. They were pals of Lincoln, though.

I descend from Ben Roodhouse Sr's sister, Hannah. And also Jane Moses's brother, Jonathan. Both died years before this lot emigrated.
 
Bear with me here. I'd be interested in opinions.

Just caught up with this old thread, and was interesting to read he input re graves caving in. I have often wondered (because I'm creepy like that) why some sink in but others, right by them, don't... There is a public grave near here with about 11 people in who died in an accident. They died in 1833, but the mound of earth above the grave is still very high. I often wondered if it was the sheer number of coffins or the fact that, from contemporary accounts, these were unusually expensive and fancy coffins (ie: heavy oak that maybe didn't cave in the minute earth was heaped on them)..?

My mum was in an unmarked grave (dad couldn't afford a headstone when she died) and there were a couple more alongside her. Although I didn't go to the funeral in the early 1970s, my house was just over the road, and my dad took me across there a couple of weeks after she died as I wanted to lay flowers.

I remember the fresh still soil covered grave and it had a white wooden marker with 3 or 4 black numbers painted on it. The marker stayed there for years. As a kid I memorised the number. Not that I needed to. I forget it now.

Several years back, a family member wanted to put a headstone on it and he had never been up there so asked the vicar to look at the records and show him the site, because when I took rellie up there he said from the dates on nearby stones, she would be out of date order, and couldn't be there... Now I knew she was but with my dad also long dead, and all mum's relatives who went to the funeral also gone, had no-one to ask. Vicar (who was not there in the 1970s so only going from a plan) said the grave was further along - maybe ten graves away. Thing is, I knew it was where I thought as I remember counting in from the edge, three graves in and in front of one of her old mates. Dad took me once and once only. Although we lived yards from the churchyard he never to my knowledge went there again. Also, the marker was there for YEARS before it was grubbed up. And the grave still freshly dug when I first saw it, still with flowers on. I also recall graves going in to the side of her, later. although no headstones appeared on those either. But they too had markers for years. The grave was the total other end to the churchyard than my house and also on a big hill, so we couldn't see the funeral, or the grave itself, from our windows.

Vicar said there was the wall to a long forgotten medieval chapel and so they had no burials in the bit where I recalled not only mum's burial but also a couple of others. It was just a coincidence none had headstones. None were sunken in, so no clue but I knew damn well where she was buried.

Thing is, my old friend is an amateur historian who happened to research this very medieval chapel. And he told me years ago that it was right the other side of the graveyard. And this is a massive churchyard. You're talking half an acre away.

Vicar had no way of knowing I knew this. And I was so shocked with his arsy attitude, I said nowt.

After he swept off, I looked at the dates of the stones either side of where he claimed mum was buried and if there she was also out of date sequence.

Thing is, the day she was buried there was a lot of snow so I am guessing the ground may have been frozen when the gravedigger came. So he had to put the grave somewhere else.

Vicar (who is quite a nasty piece of work and with the emotional intelligence of a brick) got quite shirty when I insisted the grave couldn't be where he said (another unmarked one). I said to him I thought my memory was accurate so much so I could tell him the day of the week mum was buried (he checked - I was right). I was only just ten when she died and they didn't want me at the funeral. But I did see a mound of are earth with flowers on my dad took me to and said was mum's grave - and why would he lie, or forget in a fortnight? Why would he have shown me the wrong grave site - especially as it was a small village then and maybe only one death every few months. It would have been the only fresh grave for some time.

I later tracked down the old school friend who used to go up with me when I laid flowers on it (and the marker was still on it) and she said I had remembered correctly. I asked a step relative who my dad once had pointed it out to - she also confirmed it was where I thought. They are the only two people I can think of for verification. I also knew the vicar was lying about or ignorant of, the site of the small medieval chapel.

The several unmarked graves, my mum's and a couple next to it - were there. I took flowers up probably weekly for many, many years. It's not undiggable as I remember 3 or 4 graves there, several appearing after my mum. I guess the ground defrosted and the gravedigger went back to putting them in sequence. Then the others appeared next to mum later in the next few months, as people died so she ended up in the middle of the 1972 deaths not the 1971 ones..

We'd not be allowed to dig up the one vicar claimed was her, to prove it wasn't. But my family can't put a headstone on if they wanted to as I dispute where the grave is. No-one with a definitive memory is alive. I don't think my mum would care. I still leave flowers where I left flowers since 1971. If any one of these 3 or 4 unmarked graves had sunk in a little we'd see they were grave sites. I don't even know if my dad paid for a family plot or not, so we probably should know precisely where it is, if he did... He married again and died 150 miles away. The ground remains level but then quite a few of those 1970s' burials, it has only a couple have caved in a bit. Nothing I can ever do about it, I guess?
 
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GITM,

With reference to you thinking the ground may have been too cold for the grave to be dug.

In the UK the ground temperature doesn't really get so cold.

Here is a reference to the UK weather in 1971.

If you look at it you will see that the temperature at a depth of 30CM (about 1 Foot) never dropped below 0C.

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/binaries/content/assets/mohippo/pdf/g/8/feb1971.pdf

INT21
 
I grew up living right by Christ’s Church in the village of Adlington, Lancs and the graveyard was pretty much our playground as kids.....that and the railway line that ran right alongside it! Just before we moved out of the village the church was decommissioned (if that’s the correct term....desanctified??) and was turned into a curry house of some sort. The gravestones were removed in order to create somewhere to park and, so I’m led to believe, subsequently disposed of in Morecombe Bay. Quite why the gravestones were disposed of in that manner, I have no idea but the bodies were not uprooted from their resting places which I have always thought was rather questionable. I wonder if the patrons dining there were aware that they had parked up on the final resting place of so many corpses? I supposed uprooting the bodies and relocating or disposing of them was prohibitively too difficult and/or expensive.
 
Sgt Girth said:
I grew up living right by Christ’s Church in the village of Adlington, Lancs and the graveyard was pretty much our playground as kids.....that and the railway line that ran right alongside it! Just before we moved out of the village the church was decommissioned (if that’s the correct term....desanctified??) and was turned into a curry house of some sort. The gravestones were removed in order to create somewhere to park and, so I’m led to believe, subsequently disposed of in Morecombe Bay. Quite why the gravestones were disposed of in that manner, I have no idea but the bodies were not uprooted from their resting places which I have always thought was rather questionable. I wonder if the patrons dining there were aware that they had parked up on the final resting place of so many corpses? I supposed uprooting the bodies and relocating or disposing of them was prohibitively too difficult and/or expensive.
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Last time I looked into it the cost was about £1000 per exhumation and the graves had to be at least 100 years old.
 
Frideswide said:
I think it's deconsecration but am not sure!
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Yes I'm sure you're right. My mate's sister did Law at Kings in the early 80's and went to work for Brent Council (London) - her first task was to determine the correct procedure to deconsecrate and secularise an old disused Church yard so it could be converted into playing fields. The problem being local by-laws stretching into antiquity that forbad the playing of fooballe on Church grounds.
 
Oh dear.....we played football on the church grounds all the time. The grounds to the rear of Christ Church didn’t have any gravestones to get in the way of our improvised pitch. Our footballs would occasionally be hoofed over onto the railway line but that wasn’t a problem as we treated that as a playground as well back then.....amazing to think that I deal in Health and Safety nowadays!
 
I am personally convinced (without evidence of course) that some kind of entity has protected me over my life, especially as a kid.

One time trainspotting (I know...), sat stupidly high up on the support of a railway bridge. I fell and put my hand out to stop myself and put my hand on the electric wire. By this I found out that the outside line is not electrified.

I have many more instances where I cheated serious injury, sometimes by mere seconds.
 
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