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Unique tombstone in St. Mary's Churchyard
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JUST by the north-west doorway leading into the nave of St. Mary’s Church occurs a very rough looking tombstone which I believe, is unique in England. In very rough letters, it declares that it commemorates the daughters of William and Elizabeth Sefton, who died in 1714 showing that it is contemporary with the accession of King George I.
Mr. Sefton was a manufacturer of clay pipes and other earthenware commodities. When his children died, for some reason or other which is hidden from us, he did not adopt the usual custom of purchasing a professionally-made tombstone to mark their resting-place, but, taking a mass of the clay which he used in his business, he roughly fashioned it into tile shape of a tombstone, and scratching the epitaph with which he desired to commemorate his children as well as he could on the soft surface, he burned the whole thing into terra-cotta in one of his trade ovens, and then set up this very rough but efficient tombstone in St. Mary’s Churchyard.
Next to pottery, I suppose that terra-cotta is about as lasting a material as anything of which we have knowledge, and it is rather curious to think that when the stone work which forms St. Mary’s Church and the marble and granite out of which is made the other memorials have disappeared, this home-made tombstone will still remain.