Skull & Cross Bones Gravestone in Stallingborough Lincolnshire
After finding a raised tomb with a skull carved in it my curiosity was roused and I decided to search for more in Lincolnshire.
The task proved more difficult than I thought.
Thanks to a tip off from Chris Keyworth I did find this one frm the early 1700s !
I’d already visited Stallingborough Church well before I began looking for interesting gravestones but I returned to photograph it and subsequently it yet again reared its ugly head the other day on another thread so yesterday I was back once again !
Skull - Crossed Bone and Hour Glass
The skull and cross bones are know as a Memento Mori, a reminder of our own mortality if you will, the hour glass also serves as a reminder that the sands of time are running out. I spent some time yesterday trying to make out as much of the text as possible, Neville too was on the case. Independently we both got much the same but Neville got more of the text than I did - particularly the ‘older text’ so we’ll go with his transcript seen below
 Reader as thou passes byBehould thee death’s Cruelty: yt would not give this youth a longer time but blasted his blossom in his prime: it hid him here in mold duli: untill ye resurrection of ye Just then he shall rise again etc 
|
One thing that puzzled me initially was the fact that the stone had carving and inscriptions of both sides, also the unusual shape.
Not being flat on both faces but having an apex to rear. I’m not an expert, far from it, but I’ve seen a lot of gravestones in Lincolnshire now and not seen any shaped like this or lettered both sides. I don’t say they don’t exist just that I’ve not spotted any.
I wondered whether it may have been reused at some point ?
Another interesting aspect to this story is the local story or myth told to us by translator extraorindinaire Amiguru that the grave was in fact that of a pirate washed up ashore. If you’ve heard this local tale please do let us know.
The ‘Reverse’ Side
The side I refer to as ‘verso’ has a latin inscription on it and Neville Sisson has been kind enough to translate it for us
|
HIC JACET IN MORTVAS ELLIS PENSON (QUI) OBIIT SEPTIMO DIE FEBRUARYI 1720 ÆTATIS SUÆ 23 Translates as: Here lies in death |
The shot below show the stone viewed from the top side and shows clearly the usual apex ‘back’
The search is now on to find out as much as possible about Ellis Penson and anything about his family.
I should really welcome any comment on this stone and the inscription etc please do leave a comment and let us know what you think.
If you know anything of it or the subject please do share - thank you - any and all opinions or ideas very welcome - any thoughts at all !
I should also love to hear of any more grave stones with skulls on them in Lincolnshire - any tips hugely appreciated
Gravely Yours
Rod
[later edit] From the Penson family - scroll down the comments for the full text:
He was the son of a land owner and carpenter, William Penson and Mary nee Stapp of Killingholme. I am a decendant from William and Mary Penson
Amiguru said,
November 24, 2009 @ 12:22 pm
Rod,
Looking good. No silly, I meant the stone.
I have a niggling query over my interpretation of the name. Although you provided excellent large images, I wasn’t 100% certain of the initial H of Henson, particularly as that area is slightly damaged by a crack and scratching. Natural side lighting might have provided a little shadow in the letters and shown the critical subtleties of the this one. I can also see it as a ‘B’, if you see what I mean, making it Benson. My researches shall be conducted on the premise that it could be either name.
Frustrating isn’t it when carved stone lettering erodes. Another case in point is the lettering on the butter cross. I took several shots in August, including macros, with and without flash to try to decipher at least a few letter. I think I have only been convinced of two of them. Mother nature reclaimes all. It reminds me of the couplet from Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy:
In time small wedges cleave the hardest oak,
In time the flint is pierced with softest shower.
Inquisitively yours,
N
le
Rod said,
November 24, 2009 @ 6:58 pm
Neville,
I’m wondering about the last name myself - I fancy the possibility of Ellis Penson
I’m just trying to recover lettering myself and having another go at the gravestone - it’s frustratingwhen you feel you’re close or just missing a word or two . ..
Best
Rod
Amiguru said,
November 24, 2009 @ 8:28 pm
Rod,
I fancy the possibility of Ellis Penson
I quite agree with that possibility. I’ve just been fiddling with the original image in Photoshop thus: Zoom to surname, Quick Edit, Set Midtone Contrast to 75%, set Darken Highlights to 100%, set Hue to orange. Strangely this gives an olive tinted image.
That gets rid of some of the glare particularly on the freshly scratched central bit.
I then loaded the original into Irfanview and fiddled with the Gamma and saturation settings.
Conclusions:
‘H’ can probably be eliminated; ‘R’ comes into the frame. Possibilities are now Penson, Benson or Renson. I’m inclined to Penson however, it is quite an unusual name, as is Renson, (each scoring half a million, give or take in Google), Benson scoring 25.5 million. That doesn’t eliminate any but is interesting nevertheless.
I think the only solution is more shots both ‘normal’ and macros but with natural side lighting to enhance shadows and of course feeling the surface. Please don’t make me feel guilty by your promptly going back yet again with this as your sole errand. When passing would be wonderful Rod
More on the different lettering styles later.
Gratefully yours,
N
le
Rod said,
November 24, 2009 @ 8:41 pm
Neville,
there are Penson’s in Lincolnshire - been searching them out (staggeringly I found one who sadly lost his life in the war and his grave has the Death or Glory skull on it )
The ‘back’ is ‘as is’ Neville not cleaned etc, it looks as though it has either been laid down for a very long time or protected from the elements unlike the skull side.
That side uncleaned then and the skull side was just washed with water and rubbed with straw.
I can try for some macro shots with flash and get rid of any bounce etc but I don’t really want to take liberties with cleaning etc.
There are Parish records for burials that cover the 1710 period I’ve found that they are in existence and on film I think - been through a ton of PDFs
Best
Rod
Amiguru said,
November 24, 2009 @ 9:04 pm
Rod,
Good work. I agree about cleaning as it can be detrimental as well as detracting from the aesthetic appearance of the stone. I’ve been looking into 19thC. name distributions in the East Midlands and come up with the following:
Penson…….South Lincs and the Wash area
Benson…….North Lincs and East Riding
Henson……South Lincs, Wash and East Riding
I know that doesn’t prove anything except trends but it contributes to the overall picture. Another aspect is the drowned pirate theory. That may be in part the embroidery of time but he may well be a drowned sailor and therefore could be from anywhere.
As to the different scripts, a possible logic is that the ‘official’ memorial, particularly as it is in Latin, was deemed, or indeed obliged, to be appropriately inscribed in a ‘Roman’ style; whilst the message for the more prosaic reader was more acceptable in a face of the type with which they were familiar; i.e. in newspapers and books of the time. Bear in mind too that in 1720 many were still illiterate.
We move on!
N
le
Chris Keyworth said,
November 24, 2009 @ 9:32 pm
i am still thinking German or Danish
Rod said,
November 25, 2009 @ 7:22 am
Neville,
point taken about 1700s - that said it’s completely different to all the other 1700s I’ve seen (most follow the same pattern) am I right in thinking that it is very unusual to see an inscription on both sides ?
Best
Rod
Rod said,
November 25, 2009 @ 7:24 am
Chris,
I’m interested in the German or Danish theory - Danish could perhaps fit nicely with the sailor or fisherman theory of Amiguru ?!?
Cheers
Rod
Rod said,
November 25, 2009 @ 7:51 am
Re CK’s theory:
The name Penson reached English shores for the first time with the ancestors of the Penson family as they migrated following the Norman Conquest of 1066.
Amiguru said,
November 25, 2009 @ 9:01 am
Rod,
I agree that it is unusual to inscribe both sides in that period but is it a coincidence that Ellis was 23 and the other inscription says
…..yt would not
give this youth a longer time
but blasted his blossom
in his prime?
The cross-section is also a factor. Here is another cat among the pigeons: Considering the shape, was the original slab a plain section of a tomb capping from an even earlier grave in say, the original church?
Regards,
le
N
Rod said,
November 25, 2009 @ 9:16 am
Neville,
I had wondered whether the stone had been a tomb top hence one of the reasons I thought ‘reused’ not just the different inscriptions.
It seems doubtful, to say the least, that somebody would have reused the stone for somebody else and left the original inscription on - I agree with you it is almost surely the same person - still seems strange and unusual though !
Best
Rod
Rod said,
November 26, 2009 @ 12:46 pm
If people thought I was mad walking all the way to Stallingborough church just to see a gravestone then think again
Today I walked there again . . . this time to look at one letter !
Neville, I’m pretty sure it’s Penson and definite that QU follows the name - I’ve som emore pics I’ll send you.
The drying out of the stone has helped a little
Cheers
Rod
Amiguru said,
November 26, 2009 @ 1:03 pm
You’re a valient warrior m’lad, [correction, m’lord] a man on a mission! We shall, together, crack it. The identity, not the stone.
In appreciation…
le
N
Rod said,
November 26, 2009 @ 3:17 pm
Neville,
top right-hand above ‘Penson’ how about
OR (almost definite) Q (possibly) S (probably)
Best
Rod
Amiguru said,
November 26, 2009 @ 5:56 pm
Hi Rod,
OK, I am pretty certain that this is the end of the Latin word MORTVAS, pronounced ‘mortuas’ meaning dead or deceased. The vowels V and A forming a diphthong. I am 95% certain of the last three letters, if you look at the legs of the ‘A’ and compare the angles with an ‘A’ lower down, e.g. in ‘FEBRUARYI’ you will notice that the former has a fairly upright right leg, indicating the diphthong. I will continue the hunt for a probable solution and the next time I’m up at Stallingborough I shall be making a ‘B’ line for this stone.
By the way, not everyone knows that ‘Stallingborough’ is the longest single word place name in England.
Scriptorially yours,
le
N
Amiguru said,
November 26, 2009 @ 7:56 pm
Rod,
Thanks to the latest pics you’ve e-mailed I think the top invisible, (well virtually,) line reads: HIC JACET IN MORTVAS which translates as ‘Here lies in death’. The key pic was the first one sent today, for even though the left vertical of ‘H’ is cropped it is a familiar starting word on Latin tombstone inscriptions. We may well tweak the odd letter with further scrutiny but as far as I’m concerned that’s the first line ’set in stone’….(no groaning please).
So provisionally we have:
HIC JACET IN MORTVAS
ELLIS PENSON (QUI)
OBIIT SEPTIMO
DIE FEBRUARYI
1720
ÆTATIS SUÆ 23
Here lies in death Ellis Penson (who) died seventh day of February 1720, his age 23
You’ve done a sterling job today Rod and deserve an engraved award. Ellis Penson may well get his just reward of ressurection if we have anything to do with it!
I have some ideas with the jigsaw pieces of the other side’s last lines and will continue to work on them.
Kind regards and appreciation,
le
N
Rod said,
November 26, 2009 @ 9:25 pm
Neville,
that’s outstanding - this could be your finest hour !
What a great journey it’s been - a real joy.
Best
Rod
Chris Keyworth said,
November 26, 2009 @ 9:43 pm
its not finished yet we need to know the exact spot he is buried now….
Alisveris said,
November 27, 2009 @ 7:42 am
thanx you vry vry nice post . bravo
Rod said,
November 27, 2009 @ 7:46 am
Chris,
I did have a good look yesterday to see if I could find a corresponding piece of broken stone still in he ground to match the headstone.
Cheers
Rod
Amiguru said,
December 13, 2009 @ 8:21 pm
Rod,
Have just come across a whole bundle of notes, drawings and maps I did last century
Apart from details to do with Ellis there are three sketches of other 18th C. tombstones in Stallingborough churchyard so I’ll add them in here if you don’t mind:
Mary wife of Pye Wattson Died June ye 17th 1745 Aged 46
HERE Lieth the Body of Margaret the Wife of Richard Bowser who died November 12th 1759 Aged 25
Here Lieth ye Body of Sarah Oglesby who Died Nov. 5th 1780
Regards,
le
N
chris keyworth said,
December 13, 2009 @ 10:14 pm
Oglesby now that name lives on in our area….
regards
chris
Rod said,
December 14, 2009 @ 8:59 am
Neville, Chris,
)
I just need to check some deleted pictures . . .
Watch this space (I say that as though a comet is going to do a fly past
Best
Rod
Rod said,
December 14, 2009 @ 9:14 am
Robert Durham’s Grave
Rod said,
December 14, 2009 @ 9:17 am
Thomas Oats ( Oates ) Died 1789 and Wife Mary Oats who dies 1803
Thomas Oats’ Grave
Amiguru said,
December 14, 2009 @ 10:01 am
Nice ones Rod. I was aware that there were others of that era which were of ’standard’ size. The ones I quoted were either quite small or lying loose or both and my concern, at the time, was that they could easily be lost or cast aside just as Ellis’ stone was when you found it. Nice that they are all gathered together here especially as some may well have known each other for parts of their lives. Among the papers I have recovered is a design which was formerly evident on the long early stone by the porch. I will e-mail that to you soon.
Regards,
le
N
chris keyworth said,
December 14, 2009 @ 11:53 am
sadley it was overcast last night but i did manage to see some of the geminids on saturday night however it was not as intense as it would have been on sunday night, in an hour on saturday i managed to see 43 meteors hitting the atmosphere but it would have been nice to see it on Sunday as they were predicting in excess of 100 per hour, oh well there is another big on next month on the 3rd so hope the weather is better for that one, but i am not holding my breath..
regards
chris
Rod said,
December 14, 2009 @ 12:43 pm
Neville,
I never saw those you mentioned at all so it’s great to preserve them for posterity.
I took the above on my last visit and thought they’d bear looking into just to see if they threw up anything of particular interest
Cheers
Rod
Rod said,
December 14, 2009 @ 12:45 pm
Chris,
I thought about trying some pictures after your tip off but as you say it was so overcast they’d have been useless
Cheers
Rod
Penson Family said,
March 23, 2010 @ 8:39 pm
Hello,
I didn’t know Ellis Penson’s tombstone has caused all this interest. (It is Penson)
i must say, when I visited the church many years ago now, the tombstone was reared up in the church tower, so you commenting about the reverse side has intrigued me, I didnt know this existed, which I am delighted to see. When visiting Stallingborough church I met the vicar, he gave me a flower festival leaflet with the pirate information in.
This, I believe is only because of the skull, crossbones and hour glass on the stone. He certainly wasn’t a pirate ( who would have paid for a pirates tombstone) He was the son of a land owner and carpenter, William Penson and Mary nee Stapp of Killingholme. I am a decendant from William and Mary Penson.
Thank you
Kind regards
Freda nee Penson
Rod said,
March 24, 2010 @ 8:54 am
Hi Freda,
thank you so much for leaving a comment and gving us this information - I’m so glad you found the article too.
It is amazing how the ‘pirate myth’ has survived - clearly, as you say, it came about from the skull and cross bones which were a regular feature on stones at the time
The myth was so strong a retired undertaker and grave digger told me people had even tried to find his ‘buried treasure’ in the graveyard !!
Thanks again Freda - comments like your make all this worthwhile
All the best
Rod
History Hunter said,
March 25, 2010 @ 2:03 pm
Yesterday i went round to see my dad (who has just turned 80). The fact that he is long of tooth and for all 80 years has been local i started with my ‘did you know’s.
I started with the Stallingborough Artillery Battery…….he had no idea that there was one there during the war years and even more surprised when i told him that it is still there, fully accessible and in full view, if only you know where to look!!! I sense a little trippette out there one day with him to have a sneeky peeky.
Next ‘did you know’ was about Newsham Lodge and Abbey…..yes yes he had heard about them
Battle of Riby Gap? Yes he knew about that too. I told him that some of the people who died in the battle are either buried and/or remembered at both Riby Church and Stallingborough Church.
It was then that he hit me, not physically, with this little gem, and i shall quote him word for word
“There is a gravestone at Stallingborough Church with a skull and crossbones on, everyone thought he was a pirate”
he said
“Penson?” I interjected
“Yes that’s the name, he worked on the land all his life. Your mum looked into the Family name when we saw it”
Here endeth the lesson! Well to say I was gob-smacked was an understatement. Just a bit of background would come in useful here
My mum (now deceased) and dad were very much into Family History, and as part of the Grimsby Family History Society visited EVERY graveyard within 20 miles of Grimsby over a period of about 12 years and recorded (wrote down) every single legible word or sign of EVERY SINGLE gravestone! They even had a few books locally published with the Memorial Inscriptions in!!!
So the moral of this story is……..some things are not a big mystery, as long as you ask the right people!!!
Penson family said,
March 27, 2010 @ 8:12 pm
In reply to Rod’s letter to Nevill 24 Nov 09, The other Penson head stone with the skull etc. is also a decendant from this family. Quite a weird feeling when I first saw this.History repeating it self!!
History Hunter said,
June 5, 2010 @ 12:49 pm
Well i had a sneaky peeky round the graveyard today. I saw the Oat(e)s, Wattson, Oglesby, Bowser and Durham Gravestones but couldnt find the one i was looking for! Typical! I’ll be getting as reputation like you, Rod, for visiting places and not finding what you are looking for!
Perish the thought
Ancestor hunter said,
September 16, 2010 @ 7:35 pm
In Jamestown, VA, in the USA, there is the Travis family cemetery. Edward Travis was buried in a stone crypt above the ground level. There is a skull and cross bones carved into the stone. His son’s crypt has the same design. The skull and bones are very realistic, and life-size. The Travis family lived on the eastern edge of the island, but I can find no records that they were pirates. The skull is slightly turned in profile. This is from the 1600s. Edward Travis married Ann Johnson, the daughter of John Johnson, who came from England about 1611 to Virginia.
Rod said,
September 16, 2010 @ 7:52 pm
Ancestor Hunter,
thanks fo rthe comment and welcome to the site.
It’s great to hear about some in America, I did see a few examples in a book once and they said they do turn up quite a bit in the states and more in Scotland then England I believe.
As to the pirates legend AH it still lives over here as well though it is in fact a Memento Mori.
Thanks again and great to hear from you
All the best fro mEngland
Rod
Steve Armstrong said,
October 12, 2010 @ 3:58 pm
[moved by site owner}
Hi Rod and all.
Appologies for posting this on the wrong thread, but couldn’t find an appropriate one.
Can anyone tell me where to view the oldest readable gravestones in Lincolnshire Churches? I note that the majority of coverage on here relates to North Lincs - I have observed stones in ST Wulframs Grantham, St Andrews Helpringham and Quadring churches dating from the 1780’s - Anyone know of the existance of 17th or early18th Century stones?
Thanks in advance for your kind help.
Steve
Rod said,
October 12, 2010 @ 4:00 pm
Hi Steve,
the one above is 1720 and I don’t recall off the top of my head seeing an earlier one.
There would be I suspect and also there may be some set into walls or inside churches but I seldom see earlier than 1780s on my travels
Best
Rod
Kate said,
October 12, 2010 @ 7:35 pm
Steve,
I don’t know if this will help, but have you tried searching the village websites for the area? It seems that many people round the world have Lincolnshire ancestry, so many villages here have a local history society of some sort, Winteringham certainly gets a lot of queries. There is an ongoing project to document and photograph the stones in the churchyard by a local historian
I think most here are Victorian with a few older ones thrown in - I’m afraid you’ll have quite a task on your hands to go through them all! Many churches that were remodeled or rebuilt lost their older stones if they were worn, damaged or if the family was no longer known of locally (occasionally the old stones were kept and propped up against the churchyard wall - Somerby church is a good example). More importantly at the time, many older stones were removed as they needed the space to make way for new burials!
As for the skull & crossbones (femurs) motif, I believe this represents the least amount of bones a body needed to be resurrected on judgement day. It strikes me that any graveyard with lots of C17th memorials bearing the design seems to be locally known as a “pirates graveyard” or is rumoured to have pirate burials. I can think of a couple of examples from places I’ved lived in the West Country, for instance, the old, so-called “Pirates’graveyard” by the ruined St George’s church at Easton on Portland, Dorset; no pirates were actually buried there, despite it being on the coast, so the use of the term may date from a later time perhaps? I can also remember living in a village called Kingswood in S. Gloucestershire in the early 70’s - all the local kids believed that the many graves in the churchyard with skull and crossbones were pirates’ graves - there must have been a heck of a lot of pirates in the Cotswolds at one time, then!
Kate
Kate said,
October 12, 2010 @ 7:46 pm
Erratum - the above should read “St Andrew’s Church in Easton” - long time since I lived there!
Kate
History Hunter said,
October 12, 2010 @ 11:43 pm
As covered in an earlier thread, the Irby Upon Humber Nameless Grave one, you asked exactly the same question, so im giving you exactly the same answer again lol
There is a Roman Gravestone at St. Mary le Wigford churchtower in Lincoln. It is set into the base of the tower.
The Gravestone inscription reads: (ive had to copy and paste this bit as my latin is not too good)
“Dis Manibus / nomini Sacri / Brusci fili(i) civis / Senoni et Carsso / unae coniugis / eius et Quinti f(ilii)”
[To the gods of the dead/departed/underworld. For the name (family of) of Sacer, son of Bruscus, citizen of the Senones et Caessouna his wife and Quintus his son].
There is also a Saxon inscription that was later added to the same stone:
“Eirtig me let wircean and fios godian Criste to lofe and sancte Marie” [Eirtig had me built and endowed to the glory of Christ and Saint Mary].
Eirtig was the very first benefactor who raised the funds to erect the original Church. Now why he thought to add his inscription to the Roman Gravestone instead of having his own, we will never know.
Kate said,
October 13, 2010 @ 12:51 am
Hi HH,
Kevin Leahy told me that it was quite common for Anglo Saxon converts to hedge their bets and make submissions to the old gods as well; I wonder if this chap was doing just that by re-using the Roman gravestone because it mentioned aspects of deities he would have recognised and once have worshipped?
Kate
Laurie Stewart said,
December 30, 2010 @ 4:23 pm
Hello Rod et al from the States,
I use the States because America is rather larger than just the US! Just ask the Canadians. Now to the point. I am researching the Stallings branch of my family and had got back to Nicholas, who came over from England (with ‘wife’) in 1635. Last evening I came across a lineage for the Alabama line which referenced Stallingborough as the Stallings English place of origin. However, this post stated that they were originally Danes named Storling. Here it becomes easier for me to paste in the post itself;
The Stalling family is of Danish origin. Originally, the name was spelled “Storling”; meaning “Steersman” which meant “Captain of a Viking Longboat”. It was first thought that the Storling family made their way to England with a group of Danish people about 800 A.D.
This group migrated into Germany and then made their way to England. The Stalling family formed a colony in Lincoln county, England known as “Stallingborough”. The site of Stallingborough can be found on the Lincolnshire Railroad near Grimsby on the east coast, about 140 miles north of London.
At the time Oliver Cromwell had his difficulties with King Charles 1, in the early 1600’s, two representatives of Stallingborough were members of the British House of Commons. These two members sided with King Charles 1 and this so infuriated Oliver Cromwell that he ordered the village of Stallingborough to be burned to the ground. The inhabitants had to flee for their lives and all records where lost.
Recently a member of the Stalling family, Laurence Stalling, while in England, visited the site of Stallingborough and found the remains of the village church were still visible.
What I am hoping to discover is two part, first is there any record of the Cromwellian bit (Riby Gap/Grip perhaps?) and Second, does anyone know of any Stallings family history in this area. I realize that if the history is true and they fled in the 1600’s there may be no residual info about them in Stallingborough. Any help is greatly appreciated. Laurie
Rod said,
December 31, 2010 @ 8:55 am
Hi Laurie,
thanks for the comment and welcome to the site, very interesting and I’m sure if anthing comes up in my, or any of our readers research, we’ll get ity posted on here
Best wishes
Rod
Steve Armstrong said,
August 12, 2011 @ 3:13 pm
Kate, HH and Rod
I’ve only just found your comments and info on this after 10 months!!! (As you can guess, i don’t work in IT duh!!!
)
Thanks very much for the info - it is appreciated.
Steve.
Rod said,
August 12, 2011 @ 4:50 pm
Steve,
- don’t leave it so long next time 
at least you found them
Regards,
Rod
Steve Armstrong said,
August 15, 2011 @ 2:23 pm
Cheers Rod
So - due to the apparent lack of stones earlier than the mid 18th Century in Churchyards, what does this imply? Many of these churches are medieval and presumably burials have taken place since the buildings came into existance. These days, when the churchyards are full, they become “closed”, presumably with no plans to clear and open them again?
Would it be correct to assume that prior to the 18th century, these stones were systematically removed after a period of time? Although this is a logical conclusion, it is somewhat surprising as peoples religious beliefs and superstitions were extremely strong at this time, and I would imagine it wasn’t easy to find people who were prepared to interfere with centuries old graves on consecrated ground?
(Appologies for asking loads of questions, and not supplying any material yet)
Steve.
Chris Keyworth said,
August 15, 2011 @ 4:27 pm
Habrough church was raised by over a meter to allow for new burials in the 1860s
Regards
Chris..
Rod said,
August 15, 2011 @ 6:48 pm
Steve,
I would imagine most of the earlier graves never actually had stone markers - they would have been beyond the financial reach of most ordinary people I imagine.
There must be simply huge numbers buried in the same spots over the years
Best
Rod