Cathedrals, abbeys and churches of England and Wales : descriptive, historical, pictorial . y)ooP, IIkvsham.] ROCK-CUT GRAVES. 485 liniited on eitlior side by a little clifY. Tlioy Vw side by side, but the beads arcnot placed along in line. The first, counting from the left, is square-headed;the next three have shouldered tops ; the fifth and sixth are rounded. At the headsof all but the fifth are squared holes, as thougli to support a cross or a memorialpillar. Three other graves, similarly hewn, may be seen, two near the church-yard wall —one of these evidently for an infant —and another one
Cathedrals, abbeys and churches of England and Wales : descriptive, historical, pictorial . y)ooP, IIkvsham.] ROCK-CUT GRAVES. 485 liniited on eitlior side by a little clifY. Tlioy Vw side by side, but the beads arcnot placed along in line. The first, counting from the left, is square-headed;the next three have shouldered tops ; the fifth and sixth are rounded. At the headsof all but the fifth are squared holes, as thougli to support a cross or a memorialpillar. Three other graves, similarly hewn, may be seen, two near the church-yard wall —one of these evidently for an infant —and another one to the HEYSHAM. There are now no remains of coverings, but in some the ledges on which lids haverested may still be seen. Nothing is known of the histor}- of these curious placesof sepvdture. Rock-cut graves are common enough in some countries, but as a rulethey are either connected with sepulchral chambers or are much more deeply sunkinto the rock; these are practically stone cofhns, of ^diich the lower part hasnot been detached from the parent rock. I know of no other instance of suchplaces of sepulture in England ; a few exist in France, of which far the mostremarkable is in Provence, at the foot of the hill crowned by the Abbey ofMontmajeur. Here the limestone rock about a curious cruciform chapel, datingfrom the beginning of the eleventh century, is hewn into graves; there mustbe hundreds of them, made for children and for adults, and they are huddledtogether without order so closely that the rock is literally honeycombed withthem—a cemetery no less strangely interesting than the famo
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Keywords: ., book, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectchurchbuildings
