A very musical graveyard
Francis Sedgemore, Thursday 16 April 2009
A lean, mean cycling machine friend of mine took me yesterday on a 100-km cycling tour from Chislehurst into rural Surrey and back. It was a fine, sunny day, and we had an excellent if for me challenging ride up and down the North Downs in Kent, and the rolling hills of eastern Surrey.
Before we reached Crowhurst, the southern-most point on our afternoon tour, my friend had us stop at St Peter’s church in the village of Limpsfield at the foot of the North Downs. We hadn’t come for any devotional purpose, and in any case the church was locked at the time.
The most distinguishing features of this Norman church are the notables buried in its graveyard…
What a delight! But of England’s musical greats, it is not only old Frederick Delius who has his resting place in Limpsfield’s ancient parish church…
This was a real cultural feast, but for us the most interesting gravestone was that of one Constance Doreen Jarrett, a wife and mother noted for her kindness…
What value a ‘great’ life when you can have an epitaph such as this?
Feed the writer! 
Friday 17 April 2009 at 06:48 UTC
That’s a lovely part of England to cycle around, Francis. How strange to have so many musos all in one place, but I’m snearing a bit at Beecham’s aggrandisement!
Friday 17 April 2009 at 11:23 UTC
Sir Thomas Beecham was in life full of his own self-importance; the headstone is merely a continuance of this into the afterlife.