There is little evidence that flowers were placed on graves in England either during or immediately after burial until, perhaps, the 1840s following the establishment of new municipal and private cemeteries. It is not known how the custom became popular in England but it might have been influenced by a number of factors discussed below.
See below for:
- Types of evidence.
- References to the presence of the custom in England.
- References to the absence of the custom in England, or for the presence mostly in Wales
- References to the custom in Ireland and Scotland
- How the custom might have spread in England
There are several types of evidence which suggest that flowers were rarely placed on graves in England until the 1840s: the first two are based on assumptions.
(1) Tourists generally commented only on things they observed in Wales with which they were unfamiliar in England. Many tourists reported finding that churchyards in Wales were attractive because of the many flowers and other plants they found on graves and some thought it was a custom worth emulating elsewhere. One of the problems with this is that the custom might have been common enough in England for tourists not to mention it, but the absence of evidence for the custom is not the same as evidence of absence.
(2) The very few reports of the custom in England suggests that it was not common there (a case of the exceptions proving the rule). It is possible that the custom was practiced in the more remote parts of England but was rarely observed by those who reported such customs.
(3) A very few tourists explicitly noted that it was a custom not practiced in England, but was to be found particularly in Wales, and also in Ireland and in some countries on the continent.
REFERENCES TO PLACING FLOWERS ON GRAVES IN ENGLAND
see also references to flowers on graves by English poets
There is almost no firm evidence for the custom of placing flowers on graves in England (other than on the borders with Wales) before the middle of the 19th century. Many of the early references are to herbs rather than to flowers, possibly because they would conceal any odors from the body. Pepys (see below) was rarely quoted; Evelyn was, but only that which appeared in later editions and some later writers quoted it as evidence that the custom was observed as late as the reign of Charles II. Likewise, the reference to flowers on graves at Ockley by Gibson (probably derived from John Evelyn or John Aubrey) in his edition of Camden’s Britannia, was sometimes assumed to date back to earlier editions.
In a few places in England, garlands were laid on the coffins of virgins, then hung in the church for many years.
There are a number of accounts which record that herbs and evergreens were carried to the funeral by mourners, strewed on the road along which the coffin was carried and placed on or in the coffin.
Drury, Susan, ‘Funeral Plants and Flowers in England: Some Examples’, Folk Lore, vol. 105, (1994), pp. 101-103.
8th – 11th century
A SAXON’S GRAVE, WHICH HAD A SIMPLE FLOWER ON IT.
Beowulf says, when speaking of a battle
Remember to bury me;
Eat over the solitary wanderer,
Un-mourningly.
Mark my hillock with the simple flower,
Nor do then about the fate
Of my bodily life long sorrow.
Brown, Richard, Sacred architecture, its rise, progress and present state, (1845), p. 293
1086
(Lower) Poston (Shropshire)
Quod tenet (ecclesia) Sancti Michaelis, thus :— “The church of St. Michael holds Possetorn of the earl. Chetel held it. Here is one virgate of land. The [arable] land [is enough] for half an oxteam. One tenant renders for the same a bundle of box on Palm Sunday.” (Domesday folio 252b) Rest from Chetel, its former Saxon proprietor, the small manor in question was then bestowed by the Norman Earl Roger upon that chapel in Shrewsbury Castle which, appropriately dedicated to Michael, the warrior-angel, is known in Domesday as the” Church of St. Michael.” The church then sublet its acquisition to a tenant who held the manor, upon condition that he should annually furnish a bundle of box, to deck St. Michael’s on Palm Sunday. As the palm did not grow in England, branches of box-tree were invariably used as a substitute.
Domesday, [1086] John Corbet Anderson, Shropshire: Its Early History and Antiquities: … (1864), pp. 335-336 and other sources, including Brand.
Early 17th century
Sir Thomas Overbury [1581 -1613] in his character of a “fair and happy milkmaid,” represents her principal anxiety to be on this subject: “thus lives she, and all her care is she may die in the spring-time, to have store of flowers stuck upon her winding sheet.”
Partington, Charles F., (ed.) The British Cyclopedia of Biography: Containing the Lives of Distinguished Men of all Ages … , Volume 2, (1838), pp. 510-511 [and many other 19th century publications]
17th century
Vault in Blandford had 17th cent coffin with bay and rosemary
Goodall, H.G., A 17th century vault in Blandford parish church. Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, vol. 92, (1970), pp. 153-155
1651
I desire to die a dry death [tearless?] but am not very desirous to have a dry funeral: some flowers sprinkled on my grave would do well and comely; and a soft shower, to turn those flowers into a springing memory.
Jeremy Taylor (Chaplin to Charles 1), Holy Living and Holy Dying, (1839), pp. 561-562
Quoted by Sir Edwin Chadwick, Report on the sanitary condition of the labouring population of Great Britain, A supplementary report of the results of a special inquiry into the practice of interment in towns, (1843), p. 158
1656
Cypresse Garlands are of great account at funeralls amongst the gentiler sort, but Rosemary and Bayes are used by the commons both at Funeralls and Weddings. They are all plants which fade not a good while after they are gathered and used (as I conceive) to intimate unto us, that the remembrance of the present solemnity might not dye presently, but be kept in mind for many years.
Coles, W., The Art of Simpling. An Introduction to the knowledge and gathering of plants, (London, 1656), pp. 64-65
1662
Mentions a churchyard near Southampton, where, in the year 1662, the graves “were accustomed to be all sowed with sage.”
Pepys, ‘Memoirs’ vol. i. p. 139
1662?
We adorn their graves with flowers and redolent plants, just emblems of the life of man, which has been compared in Holy Scriptures to those fading beauties, whose roots being buried in dishonour, rise again in glory.
Evelyn, Sylva, or a Discourse of Forest Trees, read to the Royal Society, 1662, published 1664; 5th edition, (1825), Volume 2, p. 345
1672 (pre)
Shrewsbury
I met nothing more pleasing to me than the funeral ceremonies at the interment of a My Lord, which mine host procured me the sight of. The relations and friends being assembled in the house of the defunct, the minister advanced into the middle of the chamber, where, before the company, he made a funeral oration, representing the great actions of the deceased, his virtues, his qualities, his titles of nobility, and those of the whole family; so that nothing more could be said towards consoling every one of the company for the great loss they had sustained in this man, and principally the relations, who were seated round the dead body, and whom he assured that he was gone to heaven, the seat of all sorts of happiness, whereas the world that he had just left was replete with misery. It is to be remarked, that during this oration there stood upon the coffin a large pot of wine, out of which every one drank to the health of the deceased, hoping that he might surmount the difficulties he had to encounter in his road to Paradise, where, by the mercy of God, he was about to enter; on which mercy they founded all their hope, without considering their evil life, their wicked religion, and that God is just. This being finished, six men took up the corpse, and carried it on their shoulders to the church; it was covered with a large cloth, which the four nearest relations held each by a corner with one hand, and in the other carried a bough. The other relations and friends had in one hand a flambeau, and in the other a bough, marching thus through the street, without singing, or saying any prayer, till they came to the church, where, having placed the body on trestles, and taken off the cloth from the coffin (which is ordinarily made of fine walnut-tree, handsomely worked and ornamented with iron bandages, chased in the manner of a buffet) the minister then ascended his pulpit, and, every one being seated round about the coffin, which is placed in a kind of parade in the middle of the church, he read a portion of Holy Scripture, concerning the resurrection of the dead, and afterwards sang some psalms, to which all the company answered. After this he descended, having his bough in his hand like the rest of the congregation; this he threw on the dead body when it was put into the grave, as did all the relations, extinguishing their flambeaux in the earth with which the corpse was to be covered. This finished, every one retired to his home without farther ceremony, and I departed from Schrosbury [Srewsbury] for Chester.
Jorevin de Rochefort, (published Paris, 1672, 3 vols.)
Description of England and Ireland in the 17th century: by Jorevin, Antiquarian Repertory, vol. iv. (1809), pp. 585-586
1673-1692 Ockley (published 1718)
In the Church-yard are many Red Rose-Trees planted among the Graves, which have been there beyond Man’s Memory. The Sweetheart (Male or Female) plants Roses at the Head of the Grave of the Lover deceased; a Maid that lost her Dear 20 Years since, yearly hath the Grave new turf’d, and continues yet unmarried.
Aubrey, John, The Natural History and Antiquities of the County of Surrey [1673-1692], vol. 4, (1718), pp. 185-186
1695
Ockley (Sussex) where is a certain custom, observed time out of mind, of planting rose-trees upon the graves, especially by the young men and maids who have lost their loves; so that this churchyard is now full of them.
Camden’s Britannia, 1695 (Gibson edition), col 162; 1722 edition, vol. 1, p. 183 [This is not in earlier editions of Camden. Both Evelyn and Aubrey (above) contributed to Gibson’s edition of Britannia.]
1725
Of Garlands in Country Churches: of strewing Flowers on the Grave; the Antiquity of these Customs, the Innocency of them.
Henry Bourne, Antiquitates vulgares or the Antiquities of the Common People, (1725) (and edited editions in 1777, 1849, 1854), Chapter 4
Brand, John, Observations on popular antiquities: including the whole of Mr. Bourne’s Antiquitates vulgares, [1725] with addenda to every chapter of that work … (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1777)
[This does not explicitely describe the practice of placing flowers on graves in England or Wales]
1754 (or later?)
Martyn, in his edition of Miller’s Gardeners Dictionary, published about the middle of last century, says, that in his time “it was still customary in some parts of England to distribute rosemary among the company at a funeral, who frequently threw sprigs of it into the grave.” Not in the 1759 edition
1775
Bredwardine
The graves unregarded – the church stuck with evergreens. p. 138
Near Hereford
The churches are in good repair and paved, but the graves unadorned with flowers, and neglected. p. 140
Bishop’s Castle
The church is a mean structure … some of the poor will strew Greens or flowers over the graves of their departed Friends for a few weeks. p. 145
Cullum, Sir Thomas Gerry, [Tour of south Wales, 1775], NLW 5446B
1785
Dr. Lort made the following observation in August, 1785 : “At Grey’s-Foot church, between Wrexham and Chester, were garlands, or rather shields, fixed against the pillars, finely decorated with artificial flowers and cut gilt paper.”
Brand, John, Observations on the Popular antiquities of Great Britain: Chiefly illustrating the origin of our Vulgar and Provincial Customs, Ceremonies, and Superstitions. Arranged, revised, and greatly enlarged, by Sir Henry Ellis, K.H., F.R.S., A new edition, with further additions. 3 volumes, (London: 1854), vol. 2, p. 303
1812 Oswestry
… still retain the Welsh custom of decorating the graves with flowers.
Anon, (probably Henrietta Hurrell, Suffolk), A Journey through England and Wales, 1812, John Rylands Library, Manchester, Eng mss. 421, p. 62
28.6.1813 Ellesmere
In the churchyard at Ellesmere there was an uncommon instance of humble but affectionate respect for the memory of a recently departed friend – a grave covered with Evergreens! [added in a slightly different hand] NB We afterwards found this custom very common in Wales.[end of addition]
Parke, T.J., and Parke, B., Journal of Tour of North Wales, Northumberland Record Office ZRI/31/2/7 [Ridley (of Blagdon) papers], p. 7
1817
A few observations must still be added on the pleasing, though now nearly obsolete, practice of carrying ever-greens and garlands at funerals, and of decorating the grave with flowers. There is something so strikingly emblematic, so delightfully soothing in these old rites, that though the prototype be probably heathen, their disuse is to be regretted. [Continues with extensive quotations from Bourne (see above).]
Drake, Nathan, Shakespeare and his times: including the biography of the poet …, Volume 1, (1817), pp. 239-245
1819 Herefordshire
Funerals they attend without invitation, from neighbourly regard to the deceased, and often accompany the corpse to the grave with psalm-singing. Every person present is invited to see the corpse before the coffin is closed, and the offer is mostly accepted. The relatives kneel by the corpse, and lean upon the coffin, while the service is read in the Church, and when the words earth to earth, etc., are pronounced, the relatives stoop over the grave and often weep aloud. The grave for some time after is dressed with flowers; but not turfed till the ensuing spring. If they are unable to purchase a tombstone, instances occur where an old one, not belonging to the family, has been removed, turned
Anon, Manners and Customs in Herefordshire, Gentleman’s Magazine, [originally from 1819, Part l, pp. 109-112, reprinted in Gomme, G.L., (editor), Gentleman’s Magazine Library, vol 1 (1883), p. 18
1823
ESSAYS AND SKETCHES, IN PROSE
… a custom which is nearly out of use, of strewing flowers on the graves of deceased friends … saw grave of a young woman in the north of England – two or three evergreens placed at the feet on which hung a small garland of roses.
The Derby Mercury, April 9, 1823
1823
Dorking [England]
The village rite of decorating and planting the graves of the defunct with flowers and evergreens, appears to be here entirely abolished, although, according to various authorities, this ceremony was universally prevalent at no very distant period.
The origin of the custom may be traced to the Greeks and Romans, who considered it of such importance, as to have it expressed in their wills, in which they often directed roses to be strewed and planted on their graves, as specified by an old inscription at Ravenna, and another at Milan. Hence,
Propertius has this expression ;
“ et tenera poneret ossa Rosa.”
“ We adorn their graves,” says Evelyn, in his Sylva, “ with flowers and redolent plants, just emblems of the life of man, which has been compared in Holy Scriptures to those fading beauties, whose roots, being buried in dishonour, rise again in glory.” The rose, however, appears to have been the favoured flower among the ancients; and of which Evelyn says “ this sweet flower, borne on a branch set with thorns, and accompanied with the lily, are natural hieroglyphics of our fugitive, umbratile, anxious, and transitory life, which, making ’so fair a show for time, is not yet without thorns and crosses.”
He also tells us that the custom was not altogether extinct in his time, near his dwelling in Surrey, “where the maidens yearly planted and decked the graves of their defunct sweethearts with rose-bushes.” Camden, in his Britannia, remarks, “ here also is a certain custom, observed time out of mind, of planting rose-trees upon the graves, especially by the young men and maidens, who have lost their loves: so that the church-yard is now full of them.” This last-mentioned passage may, probably, allude to the church-yard at Ockley, a short distance from Wotton, of which Aubrey observes, “In the church-yard are many red rose trees, planted among the graves, which have been there beyond man’s memory. The sweetheart (male or female) plants roses at the head of the grave of the lover, deceased: a maid that lost her dear twenty years since, yearly hath the grave new turfed, and continues yet unmarried.”
The unsophisticated feeling of sorrow which dictates these Observances, will be found abundantly scattered through. ‘out the productions of our early poets. Thus, Shakspeare’s Arvigarus, in Cymbeline :—
With fairest flowers,
Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele,
I’ll sweeten thy sad grave:
…[ellipsis IN ORIGINAL]
Yea, and furr‘d moss, besides, when flowers are none,
To winter-ground thy corse.
Again, at Ophelia’s interment, in Hamlet :
Lay her i’ the earth ;
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh,
May violets spring!
The fastidiousness of artificial refinement has, in most instances, banished these pleasing tributes of sincerity; and has filled our church-yards with objects by no means so well calculated to inspire the genuineness of emotion which we might feel in performing the last exequies at the grave of a friend, by decorating it with chaplets of flowers, or planting it with doleful evergreens? “ Etiquette has contrived to declaim against this simple but expressive rite, and to substitute a series of pageant, forms and ceremonies, which, however, are far exceeded in pathos and expression by the mournful minstrelsy and untutored sympathies of village funerals.
NOTE
“This usage,” says the elegant author of the Sketch Book, [Washington Irvin] “may still be met with in the church-yards of retired villages among the Welsh mountains; and I recollect an instance of it at the small town of Ruthin, which lies at the head of the beautiful vale of Clwyd. I have been told, also,” continues he, “by a friend, who was present at the funeral of a young girl in Glamorganshire, that the female attendants had their aprons full of flowers, which, as soon as the body was interred, they stuck about the grave. He noticed several graves which had been decorated in the same manner. As the flowers had been merely stuck in the ground, and not planted, they had soon withered, and might be seen in various states of decay; some drooping, others quite perished. They were afterwards to be supplanted by holly, rosemary, and other evergreens; which, on some graves, had grown to great luxuriance, and overshadowed the tombstones.” Mr. Daniell, in his Picturesque Voyage round Great Britain, says, “The church-yard of Briton Ferry has long been noted for more than common profusion with which the graves are decked with evergreens and flowers, and has been celebrated in an elegy by Mason. There is something at once pretty and tender in this custom, but, like all human institutions, it is subject to abuse, and is sometimes, with a strange perversion of its proper signification, converted into an instrument of malice and revenge. None but sweet-scented flowers are planted on the graves; and no others are considered as emblematical of goodness: but the turnsole, African marigold, or some other memorials of iniquity, are sometimes insidiously introduced among the pinks and roses, by a piqued neighbour, in expression of contempt for the deceased or his surviving relations.” Let us hope, for the character of the villagers, that such instances of human depravity are but rare amongst them.— But the most beautiful allusions to this rite will be found among the neglected writings of Robert Herrick, in several dirges which breathe all the tender sympathies of a poetic and highly cultivated genius:
“Virgins promis‘d, when I died,
That they would each primrose-tide,
Duly mom and evening come,
And with fiow‘rs dress my tomb:
Having promis‘d; pay your debts,
Maids, – and here strew violets.”
Timbs, J., A Picturesque Promenade round Dorking. (2nd edition, 1823), pp. 162-168
1826 Fiction
An elder-bush concealed him from the eyes of Elsbeth, for it was she who was coming to adorn with garlands the resting-place of her venerable neighbour. … though no flowers were strewed along thy path, yet shall thy grave at least be bedecked with them ” Here Arnold sprang forward through the … At the dead of the night, Arnold was still sitting upon the old man’s grave, sunk in blissful recollections …
Legends of Terror!: And Tales of the Wonderful and Wild ; Original and … (1826)
1829 Clee, Lancashire
The funerals are conducted with great formality. At the death of an individual, a messenger is dispatched to every householder in the village, with an invitation to join in procession to the Church; and it happens, not infrequently, that the corpse is attended to its final resting-place by a concourse of three or four hundred persons. In early times it was customary in this parish to crown such young females as died in their virginity with a triumphant chaplet composed of fillagree work, as a testimony of their conquest over the lusts of the flesh. This token of respect merged, in process of time, into the practice of gracing the procession of young unmarried women, with children of their own sex, habited in white, and arranged in pairs, and bearing garlands cut in white paper, emblematical of their incorrupted innocence, variously disposed according to the rank or situation of the deceased, together with long slips of white paper to represent ribbons, and other pieces cut into the form of gloves, all of which were solemnly suspended when the funeral was over, in some conspicuous part of the Church, where they remained as a perpetual trophy, or memento of the virginity of the deceased. This practice is of considerable antiquity, and derived probably from the Romans, who hung garlands about the tombs of young people, as we learn from Lucian, Tibullus, and others. On these papers inscriptions were frequently written, containing the name and age of the deceased, with verses expressive of the domestic virtues for which she had been remarkable. Some had an hourglass affixed to them as an emblem of mortality; and in all cases the skill and ingenuity of the young friends of the deceased were exercised to vary these little tokens of their affection, and to express the esteem they had entertained for their departed companion. This pretty custom prevailed at Clee down to a very recent period; and I regret that in the year 1819, when the Church underwent a thorough repair, these emblems of innocence and friendship were finally removed.
Oliver, George, Village Customs at Clee, Lancashire. Gentleman’s Magazine, [originally from 1829, Part 1, 416-17], reprinted in Gomme, G.L., (editor), Gentleman’s Magazine Library, vol 1 (1883), p. 38
1835 (before)
Miss Hemans was very pleased with the following anecdote I told her:
Near the city of Bath is a secluded little churchyard, in which, amongst other monuments, is one of pure white marble, on which was engraven the name of a nobleman’s daughter, and her age—seventeen. In addition to this was the following stanza from Mrs. Hemans’ poem, “Bring Flowers:”—
“Bring flowers, pale flowers, o’er the bier to shed,
A crown for the brow of the early dead!
For this from its bud hath the white rose burst,
For this in the wood was the violet nurst:
They have a voice for what once was onrs,
And are love’s last gift.—Bring ye flowers—pale flowers.”
The space around that grave was filled with white flowers of all descriptions, planted for the most part by stranger hands. No one ever removed a blossom from the grave, and there they flourished, as if in obedience to the mandate of the Poetess. It was one of the most graceful tributes ever paid to genius.
Dix, John Ross, (1800?-1865) Pen and Ink sketches of Poets, Preachers, and Politicians, Memory of Mrs Hemans, (1846), (2nd edition, London : David Bogue, 1847), p. 100
Felicia Dorothea Hemans nee Browne, (1793-1835)
1836
At Penshurst, in Kent, there are two graves in which are buried the remains of two young ladies, whose parents have planted them with roses, clematis and cypress, which are carefully trained, so that the graves are almost constantly surrounded by floral emblems of those who repose below.
Anon, The Penny Magazine for the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, 23rd April, 1836, p. 155
1837
I do hope that we shall not follow the French affectation, but that even, as in Wales, the flower will adorn the weeded grave, and the green fresh turf will be preserved.
London Cemetery Company, the first general meeting of the shareholders, Morning Chronicle, 17 January 1837
1838 England?
[There is no indication of place at which this is supposed to taken place]
And the time came for the villagers to crown the graves with garlands, for it was the custom in that place. So they dressed themselves in their best, and brought flowers of many kinds from their gardens, and went to the graves of their friends and relations, and covered them with the flowers in remembrance of them.
But the little maid took five flowers, from her own garden, and wove them into a garland for her mother’s grave. And the five flowers were the rose, the violet, the narcissus, the honeysuckle, and the stock. [would all of these have been in flower at the same time?]
Caswall, Edward, Morals from the Churchyard; in a Series of Cheerful Fables: With Illustrations, (1838), Chapter 13, p. 54
From the 1840s the custom of placing flowers on graves in England seems to have become more general
1840 Derbyshire
The custom of planting and strewing flowers on the graves of friends and relatives is found here ; indeed it is prevalent in almost every county in England and is particularly adhered to by the Welsh. (quotes Malkin at length)
Anon, Cursory view of the Antiquities, Customs and Literature of Derbyshire, The Derby Mercury (Derby, England), October 7, 1840
1840 (about)
sixty years ago at Farndop, Cheshire it was the rule on this festival to cover the graves with rushes neatly arranged and with flowers.
Tyack, G.S., Lore and Legend of the English church (1899), pp. 89-90
1842
Presbyterian chapel at Rivington [Lancashire] has graves adorned with flowers or cypress trees, a decoration we always love to see.
Preston Chronicle (Preston, England), July 30, 1842
1847
Removal of the Remains of Hardy and Baird, The Political Martyrs of 1820
Monument to the former traitors has been erected by the people of Glasgow. Their remains were taken from Stirling to a cemetery in Glasgow and the grave scattered with flowers. Who will plant a rose of lilly on the grave of Castlereagh or his royal master, George IV?
The Northern Star and National Trades’ Journal (Leeds, England), August 21, 1847
1849
Fanny Thompson died in 1849. Her parents, the Horsley family, visited her grave at Kensal Green Cemetery, London, soon after the funeral to place several plants in pots as a temporary measure. White roses were added later.
Jalland, Pat, Death In The Victorian Family, (2000), p. 294
1863 Kensal Green Cemetery, London
Description of the cemetery and a conservatory which ‘has only been in existence this year, and was started by the cemetery company, to supply an increasing demand for flowers on graves : a demand which the adjacent nursery gardeners were not always able to meet.’
All the year round, a weekly Journal conducted by Charles Dickens, Vol 10, 19.9.1863, ‘Kensal Green’, p. 94
1887
Now this beautiful custom, common enough as it has again become in our time, had fallen completely out of use in England a hundred or more years ago (perhaps it died a natural death when the heavy Hanovarian Georges came to our land), and then appeared singularly beautiful in the eyes of the tourists who visited Wales and had only been accustomed to the heavy woe that marked an English funeral, where pomp and ostentation vied with grief in paying the last sad rites to the departed when hired mercenaries stood around the rich man’s door in cumbrous black, and adorned with weeds and weepers, with faces prostituted to grief, while carousers within doors devoured the huge funereal meats, and often got heavy, or light, on strong beer, or yet stronger spirits.
Cardiff Times, 23.4.1887
1890
The lavish use of flowers for decking graves in many country graveyards and provincial cemeteries is merely an outcome of late and new ideas, one result of the aesthetic revival of the last 15 years. {Placing flowers on graves on Palm Sunday or Easter Day.}
In Herefordshire and other Western Counties, the friends of the dead come to the grave on the fourth Sunday after the funeral, reflecting the custom of the pre-Reformation Trentals, a service performed 30 days after a death.
‘Gleaner’
Notes and Queries, Manchester Times, April 12, 1890
1899 England
Some days are especially sacred to the adornment of graves. {The anniversary of the death}; but Easter Day, with its message of hope is generally marked by a special offering laid on many of them. Whitsunday is also sometimes similarly observed.
Tyack, G.S., Lore and Legend of the English church (1899), pp. 89-90
REFERENCES TO THE ABSENCE OF THE CUSTOM IN ENGLAND OR THE PRESENCE ONLY IN WALES
This includes quotations which explicitly refer to the custom being Welsh but does not include many other references to the practice of the custom in Wales.
1807 Hay on Wye
in the churchyard we observed a new grave strew’d with flowers! It is a Welsh custom, and they are often not strewn, but planted on the grave; and carefully weeded by the surviving friends of the deceased.
Bloomfield, Robert, Journal of a Ten Days’ Tour from Uley in Gloucestershire, by way of Ross; down the River Wye to Chepstow; Abergavenny, Brecon, Hereford, Malvern. &c. &c. August 1807, British Library Additional Manuscript 28267, f. 55
1808 Berriew
The custom of decorating the graves of departed friends has a pleasing effect: there is a mournful simplicity, very affecting in the appearance : I wish it were to prevail generally [in England?]; in my opinion it tends greatly to increase the respect the Welsh have for the sanctuaries of the dead.
Skinner, Charlotte Jane, [Tour of Wales], Cardiff Central Library MS3.295 and National Library of Wales 14537C
1812 Caernarfon
A remarkable custom prevails over some parts of Wales viz. planting the graves of departed friends with various evergreens, and all the choicest gifts of Flora’s hand.
Evans, J., The Beauties of England and Wales, or, Delineations …, Volume 17, p. 118
1812 Brecon
Here we first observed the Welsh custom of dressing the graves.
Bletchley, Ann, Bedfordshire and Luton Archives and Record Service, SY 49 (12th October)
1814 Briton Ferry
Near the house is a village church, with a small burial-ground in which the graves are all studiously decked with evergreens and flowers. This is a custom peculiar to many parts of Wales.
Daniell, William, Picturesque Voyage round Great Britain, vol. ? (1814), p. 66
1815?
The manner of attending funerals and paying that last respect to the memory of the deceased is much more commendable in Wales than in other countries where parade and affection are oftentimes the substitutes for affection, where the semblance of woe too often mocks the reality. A Welsh funeral is much more decent than the hasty internment of the dead in many parts of England, attended by two, three or half a dozen followers.
Evans, Thomas, Walks through Wales; containing a topographical and statistical description of the Principality: (1819, Second edition). Part II, p. 169 (under Aberystwyth).
1818
The Welsh pay the most respect of any people in the empire to the memory of departed friends; … Little can be offered in favor of our English church-yards, and still less of those observed in this country [Ireland].
J.C. Curwen, M.P., Observations on the State of Ireland, principally directed to its Agriculture and Rural Population in a series of letters written on a tour through that country, Volume 1, (1818) p. 431
1819 Briton Ferry
Near the ferry is the Church Yard, which is rendered interesting from the custom peculiar to South Wales of decking the graves with flowers.
Hornor, Thomas, ‘Tour through the vales of Glamorgan’ 1819, Glamorgan Record Office D/D Xfn 1/1, with illustration
1819 Kidwelly area
I observed in several of the churchyards the old Welsh custom still prevailing of planting flowers upon the graves of their relatives.
Dewing, Lynn, NMW 163680, p. 20-21
1819, Loughor
Every stranger must be struck with the neatness and propriety which are the general characteristics of the Welsh cemeteries. No rank weeds are allowed to overrun the tombs of their ancestors … but every grave is neatly marked out, the surface kept carefully clean and in most cases planted with flowers which the surviving relatives pride themselves in cherishing. Sandys, William and Sandys, Sampson, (brothers), ‘A Walk through South Wales in Oct. 1819’, Cwrtmawr MS 393C, p. 57
1819 Usk
We were much pleased with the custom of decorating the graves of deceased friends with plants and flowers; it is universal in all parts of Wales, among the rich as well as the poor.
Selwyn, Elizabeth, Mrs (1824, 1830) Journal of Excursions through the most interesting parts of England, Wales and Scotland, during the Summers and Autumns of 1819, 1820, 1821, 1822 and 1823, (London, 1824), p. 59
1819-1820
The following comes from a chapter of 4,000 words entitled ‘Rural Funerals’ which cites a number of earlier sources including Bourne (above).
Among the beautiful and simple-hearted customs of rural life which still linger in some parts of England, are those of strewing flowers before the funerals, and planting them at the graves, of departed friends. These, it is said, are the remains of some of the rites of the primitive church; but they are of still higher antiquity, having been observed among the Greeks and Romans, and frequently mentioned by their writers, and were, no doubt, the spontaneous tributes of unlettered affection, originating long before art had tasked itself to modulate sorrow into song, or story it on the monument. They are now only to be met with in the most distant and retired places of the kingdom, where fashion and innovation have not been able to throng in, and trample out all the curious and interesting traces of the olden time. …
The custom of decorating graves was once universally prevalent; … This usage has now become extremely rare in England; but it may still be met with in the churchyards of retired villages among the Welsh Mountains, … and where the tender rite of strewing and planting flowers is still practiced, it is always renewed on Easter, Whitsuntide, and other festivals, when the season brings the companion of former fertility more vividly to mind. …
The sketch book of Geoffrey Crayon [pseudonym for Washington Irving], Gent, Volume 1 By Washington Irving (Originally published 1819 – 1820) 1839, pp. 179-195; The complete works of Washington Irving in one volume By Washington Irving (1834) p. 267; Irving, Washington, The Sketchbook (1850). Chapter entitled ‘Rural Funerals’
1821 Briton Ferry
The church-yard is often admired, and you will see there that affecting Welch custom of planting the graves of deceased friends with flowers.
Newell, Robert Hasell, Rev, (1778-1852), Letters on the Scenery of Wales … (1821), p. 44
1821
At the present day, there exists in Wales the custom of dressing graves with flowers, weekly; which exhibits scenes of the most tender and interesting kind.
Jefferson, J.B., The history of Thirsk: including an account of its once celebrated castle … (Thirsk, 1821), p. 158
1821 Rhayader Gwy
At one of the two churches there I saw a pleasing Welch custom, like that of decorating graves with flowers.
Newell, Robert Hasell, Rev, (1778-1852), Letters on the Scenery of Wales … (1821), p. 94
1821
among the Catholic cantons of Switzerland, as well as in many parts of North and South Wales, it is still the common custom of the country [to decorate the graves with flowers].
Bucke, Charles, On the Beauties, Harmonies, and Sublimities of Nature; with Occasional Remarks on the Laws, Customs, Manners, and Opinions of Various Nations.( 4 vols. London, 1821), pp. 256-267
1822
How beautiful are many of our country churchyards, filled with humble graves, and covered with wild flowers. This is the case particularly in Wales.
Anon, ‘Church Yard Wanderings’ New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal, vol. 4, July to December, vol. 5 (1822), pp. 84-91
1824
It is, however, in Wales that the practice of planting flowers and shrubs on the graves, most generally prevails; lilies, snowdrops, &c, are placed over children, and sweetbriers and rose-trees over grown-up persons.
Anon, The Queen of Flowers: Or, Memoirs of the Rose (Original edition, 1824); (Philadelphia, 1841), pp. 71-79
1824
I am not sure that I heartily approve the custom, rare in this country, but frequent in many others — of planting flowers and flowering shrubs about the graves…. The custom, so general in Switzerland, and so common in our own principality of Wales, of strewing flowers over the graves of departed friends, either on the anniversaries of their deaths, or on other memorable days is touching and beautiful…. Even in our own unsentimental England, I have seen two or three of these flowerpot graves.
Anon, ‘Sketches of Society : Country Churchyards’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, vol. 15, (1824), pp. 467-469 and republished elsewhere in 1824 and 1825.
1824 Aberystwyth Churchyard
One (only one!) grave is decorated in the ancient Welsh fashion – that of having flowers planted over it, still very prevalent in many parts of Wales – an elegant and affectionate characteristic, and France has thought it worthy her adoption in the beautiful cemeteries of Pere la Chaise.
Prichard, Thomas Jeffery Llewelyn, 1790-1862, The new Aberystwyth guide to the waters, bathing houses, public walks, and amusements … (Aberystwyth, 1824), p. 19
1825 near Aber
For the first time I saw the manner of decking a Welsh grave; many of these were trimmed with – what had been green and pretty, but were all now withered , like those interred underneath.
Weeton, Ellen (1776–1849), Miss Weeton’s journal of a governess, (David & Charles, 1969), pp. 362-363
1827 Llangollen
the customs of the orthodox Welsh church are similar to those in England except in the following viz: that of bedecking the graves of the dead with shrubs & flowers, of singing before the corpse to the church, & ringing a passing bell.
Beecroft, Judith, Cardiff Central Library, MS2.325
1831
The custom of planting evergreens over the graves of departed friends, and adorning them at certain seasons of the year with flowers, is very prevalent throughout Wales.
Leigh’s Guide to Wales & Monmouthshire:… (First edition 1831), p. 17 and several subsequent editions up to 1844
1833
The custom is now confined to a few parts of Europe, Ireland, Wales, and the Catholic cantons of Switzerland. In the last of these an iron cross is placed upright, from which a bowl, containing holy water, is suspended, with which the passers-by sprinkle the graves of the deceased on their way to church.
Wright, George Newenham, Scenes in North Wales, (1833), p. 158
23.3.1834 Llangattock
Palm Sunday Dydd Sul y Blodau. This day we, in common with many of our neighbours, paid that touching attention to the departed confined (I believe) to Welsh churchyards.
Diary of William Hibb Bevan (Ironmaster of Beaufort Ironworks, near Hay, Llangattock), NLW ms 22689B, f. 44v. On 1st April 1833 (Palm Sunday) he recorded that the family had seen that the graves in the churchyard had been strewn with flowers and evergreens. In 1857 his wife recorded that shortly before her death, her daughter had visited the graveyard on Palm Sunday ‘admiring the profusion of flowers with which the tombstones were adorned little thinking that in a short ten days her own grave would be covered with flowers and watered with tears‘. NLW ms 22689B, f. 31, 102.
1837
LONDON CEMETERY COMPANY. The first general meeting of the shareholders
I do hope that we shall not follow the French affectation, but that even, as in Wales, the flower will adorn the weeded grave, and the green fresh turf will be preserved.
Morning Chronicle, 17 January 1837
1838
Churchyards. In Britain, respect for the dead is not generally shown by the introduction of flowers over their graves; but the practice prevails in some places throughout the country, more especially in Wales, and it is not unfrequent in the metropolitan and other cemeteries. Perhaps it ought to be commended and encouraged. In every part of Germany [they do this] and the inhabitants are a very a reflective and very humane and amiable people …
The Belfast News-Letter (Belfast, Ireland), Tuesday, June 19, 1838
1842
The ancient custom of decorating graves with flowers, the symbols of fleeting mortality has almost passed from recollection in this country [England], and is rapidly disappearing in most parts of Wales;
Bloxam, J.R., The book of fragments (1842), pp. 82-83
1857
The English are almost the only people who do not pay those reverential and affectionate visits, and who do not generally decorate the grave with flowers, &c. The Welsh practice this amiable duty very generally.
Pettigrew, Thomas Joseph, Chronicles of the tombs: A select collection of epitaphs, preceded by an essay on epitaphs and other monumental inscriptions with incidental observation on Sepulchral Antiquities (1857), pp. 266-272
1863
Although the decoration of the graves of departed friends with flowers is of great antiquity, and has been kept alive by the stirring appeals of the poet as well as the writer of romance; yet in many parts of England it has either fallen into disuse or has never been practised at all, and it is questionable whether it has ever been so popular in any part of England as it is in The Principality.
The Journal of Horticulture, Cottage Gardener, and Country Gentleman. A Magazine of Gardening, Rural and Domestic Economy, Botany and Natural History. Conducted by George W. Johnson, F.R.H.S., and Robert Hogg, No. 111, Volume v (new series), (1863), chapter ‘ Plants Suitable for a Grave’, pp. 1-3
1867
In Cheshire it had been considered heathen to put flowers in or on graves, and the first time this was done was for his own father’s grave at Didsbury in 1867.
Moss, Fletcher, Folk-lore, old customs and tales of my neighbours, (1898), pp. 18-19
1876
The continental practice of planting graves with flowers, and of adorning them with garlands of immortelles, is being extensively copied in the cemeteries around our large cities; here and there in quiet English villages, it has, however, long obtained. Newly-made graves are very generally adorned with cut flowers in the English counties, but these embellishments are very seldom renewed and the custom of annually dressing the graves with flowers on Palm Sunday seems almost confined to Wales.
County Observer and Monmouthshire Central Advertiser, 15.4.1876
1880s
Strewing flowers over the corpse in the coffin was traditional in Sunderland in 1880s
Brockie, W., Legends and Superstitions of County Durham (1886)
1887
Now this beautiful custom (of strewing flowers on graves), common enough as it has again become in our time, had fallen completely out of use in England a hundred or more years ago (perhaps it died a natural death when the heavy Hanovarian Georges came to our land), and then appeared singularly beautiful in the eyes of the tourists who visited Wales …
Glamorgan Antiquities By Henry G. Butterworth, XXXII, Old Welsh Graveyard Customs, Cardiff Times, 23.4.1887
1890
Strewing flowers over the corpse in the coffin was traditional in 1890.
Nicholson, J., Folk lore of East Yorkshire, (1890)
1899
The remembrance of the departed, as exhibited in a decent care for their resting places, has sensibly increased in recent years. Graves are less frequently found neglected … Much that made graves and funerals hideous in the past has happily gone out of fashion … And in their place the bright beauty of the flowers comes with its lessons of mortality.
Tyack, G.S., Lore and Legend of the English church (1899), p. 89
1976
It was never an English custom though it has been recorded in a few villages in the counties of Gloucestershire and Staffordshire.’ [no sources quoted].
Hole, Christina, [editor of the British Folk Custom Society] A Dictionary of British Folk Customs (1976), revised 1995, p. 107-108
Litten in his substantive work on English practices associated with death, has nothing more to say on the subject than ‘Floral tributes made their appearance in the late 1860s‘, but quotes Richard Davey, A History of Mourning, 1889, p. 111 ‘the fashion of sending costly wreaths to cover the coffin is recent and was quite unknown in Paris twenty years ago as it was in this country until about the same period.
Julian Litten, The English Way of Death, (1991, reprinted 2002), p. 170
REFERENCES TO THE CUSTOM IN IRELAND
I have made no particular effort to search the literature for evidence of placing flowers on graves in Ireland and Scotland: the following were found when searching for evidence of the Welsh custom.
1818 Ireland
The Welsh pay the most respect of any people in the empire to the memory of departed friends; … Little can be offered in favor of our English church-yards, and still less of those observed in this country [Ireland]. The neglect here is really scandalous, and a manifest reproach to the responsible parties. Can the clergyman’s horse or cow be seen scrambling over, and trampling down, the graves which cover the bosoms of our fellow-creatures, for the purpose of gathering a scanty repast, without calling forth sensations repulsive to our feelings of humanity? It is a practice as revolting to every sense of propriety in the living, as it is a desertion of duty and want of respect to the dead.
J.C. Curwen, M.P., Observations on the State of Ireland, principally directed to its Agriculture and Rural Population in a series of letters written on a tour through that country, Volume 1, (1818) p. 431
1828 Ireland
It was, and perhaps is still, the custom in Dublin on St. James’s day, for the relatives and friends of those who are buried in St. James’s church-yard, to dress up the Graves with flowers, cut paper, Scripture phrases, garlands, chaplets, and a number of other pretty and pious devices, where those affectionate mementos remained, until they were displaced by fresh ones the next year.
Carlisle, Nicholas, An historical account of the Origin of the Commission appointed to inquire concerning charities in England and Wales; and, an illustration of several old customs and words, which occur in the reports. (London, 1828), pp. 326-327
1829 GLENDALOUGH, Ireland
I came to where, beside the little chapelry in which Priests are buried, a new closed grave heaved its trunked and unsubsided turf. The white paper ornaments and faded flowers fixed at its head and foot, denoted that the human form now dissolving away underneath, was young and unmarried: a woman, wrapped in her mantle, on her knees, was bending over the grave: she every now and then beat her bosom, and used that peculiar rocking motion which Irishwomen employ to express grief.
Anon, A Day at the Seven churches at GLENDALOUGH, The Christian examiner and Church of Ireland magazine, vol. 9, (1829), p. 114
1835 Cork, Ireland
I wandered out of the city, after being nearly suffocated in this small chapel, in search of fresh air; and meeting a poor man’s funeral, I followed to the distance of about a mile, when we reached the Botanical Garden, a spot now laid out as a cemetery, in humble imitation of Pere la Chaise. .. On a board was written up in several places, “Injure not the plants and flowers, they are sacred to the dead.”
The howling and lamentations of two or three old women were very pitiable. I observed one young girl kneeling on a grave without any stone, and holding in her hands some wild flowers, just plucked;
G F G. Mathison, Journal of a tour in Ireland, during the months of October and November 1835 (1836), pp. 27-28
1844 Glendalough, Ireland
The Seven Churches lie, in the same manner as those on Scattery Island, and in a more or less ruined state, about the Round Tower, and the entire area of the ruins serves at this day for a churchyard. The people of the glens around bury their dead here, some in the sacred precincts of the old churches, and others near them, and near the pillar-temple. Close to the foot of this primeval building I saw the recent grave of a little girl: the cross on the grave had been ornamented with cut-paper wreaths, which the wind had partially dispersed. … Therefore the inhabitants of the surrounding country, on I know not what day of June, assemble here, and adorn the graves and crosses of those dear to them, and the stones of the old ruins, with flowers, branches, and cut papers, in memory of St. Kevin’s goodness, and in honour of their dead.
Johann Georg Kohl, Travels in Ireland (1844), pp. 245-246
REFERENCES TO THE CUSTOM IN SCOTLAND
Bennett suggests that the placing of floral tributes on graves was not universal in Scotland and that wreaths may have been intoduced at the end of the First World War as part of Remembrance Sunday Ceremonies.
Bennett, Margaret, Scottish Customs from the Cradle to the Grave (2004), pp. 254-265
HOW THE CUSTOM MIGHT HAVE SPREAD IN ENGLAND AND ELSEWHERE
At present no firm evidence has been found for when, how or why the custom appears to have spread in England, but there are several possible reasons:
(1) The creation of the a cemetery at Pére-Lachaise on the outskirts of Paris in 1804, which is described as the first garden cemetery as well as the first municipal cemetery might have inspired others to establish similar cemeteries in England and in other European countries. Detailed descriptionsof the cemetery were published in English from at least the early 1820s, but some disliked the masses of flowers on the graves because they there too sophisticated and artificial and were unlike the ‘simple and fresh feelings of nature’ assumed to be found in English cemeteries.
(2) New large, non-denominational cemeteries were established in and around large towns in England from the 1820s (and in Wales from the late 1850s), partly to cope with the large numbers who died of epidemics (such as cholera, 1831-1832 and 1848-1849), but also to provide sufficient plots for expanding populations for which parish churchyards had no room. These new cemeteries also provided burial plots for people of all faiths, avoiding the issue of nonconformists having to be buried in church cemeteries.
It is likely that the new cemeteries were originally almost devoid of any sort of plants, other than wild flowers and those which formed the field boundaries. It might have taken only one or two people to place flowers on the graves of relatives for the custom to become popular. It is possible that the large communities of Welsh people who have moved to towns in England (especially London, Manchester, Liverpool) continued to practice the custom with which they were familiar, and it was copied by others (but there is no firm evidence for this).
(3) It was thought by some that flowers absorbed the efluvia or miasma in the air thought to cause the spread of the cholera and other epidemics. This was confirmed in reports at the time.
A rich vegetation exercises a powerful purifying influence, and where the emanations are moderate, as from single graves, would go far to prevent the escape of any deleterious miasma. … The influence, therefore, of a full variety of flowers and a rich vegetation, so necessary for the actual purification of the atmosphere, as well as to remove associations of impurity, and refresh the eye and soothe the mind, can only be obtained at a distance from most towns.
Sir Edwin Chadwick, Report on the sanitary condition of the labouring population of Great Britain, A supplementary report of the results of a special inquiry into the practice of interment in towns, (1843), pp. 321-322
(4) Some large town cemeteries were unhealthy, unsafe and so full that there was no safe or considerate way to bury more bodies. The following quotation suggests that placing flowers on graves in these cemeteries was rare because they might be stolen or die of pollution.
It occasionally happens that individuals incur expense to decorate graves in the town churchyards with flowers, and more would do so, even in the churchyards near thoroughfares, but that they perish.
Sir Edwin Chadwick, Report on the sanitary condition of the labouring population of Great Britain, A supplementary report of the results of a special inquiry into the practice of interment in towns, (1843), pp. 321-322
The Derby Burial board agreed that shrubs and flowers could be placed on graves.
The Derby Mercury, December 10, 1856
Several articles and books were written to assist those who managed churchyards and cemeteries and those who wished to plant flowers on graves to selecting appropriate plants and trees. e.g.
Sir Edwin Chadwick, Report on the sanitary condition of the labouring population of Great Britain, A supplementary report of the results of a special inquiry into the practice of interment in towns, (1843)
John Claudius Loudon, On the Laying Out, Planting, and Managing of Cemeteries: And on the Improvement of Churchyards, (1843)
Anon, ‘Plants Suitable for a Grave’, The Journal of Horticulture, Cottage Gardener, and Country Gentleman. A Magazine of Gardening, Rural and Domestic Economy, Botany and Natural History. Conducted by George W. Johnson, F.R.H.S., and Robert Hogg, LL.D. No. 111, Volume v (new series), 1863. pp. 1-3
see bibliography
(5) As some Victorians became wealthier they were able to spend large sums on funerals. They could continue to demonstrate their loss by decking the graves of their relatives and friends with flowers at regular intervals. Florists took advantage of a new market and set up stalls at or near cemeteries. A number of articles critical of excessive expenditure on funerals were published during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
(6) Published references to the custom in accounts of tours of Wales, plays, poems, novels and studies of folk customs might have inspired others to practice it.
(7) It has been suggested by some that the placing of flowers on graves increased following the First World War. This might be so, especially in France where flowers were placed on the graves of the fallen, but not so much in Britain because very few of the bodies of British soldiers were repatriated. Floral tributes of plants other than poppies were placed on war memorials but there is little evidence that this led to an increase in the practice on other graves.
Early Tourists in Wales 