St Peter's, Preston Park

The church marks a lot of life and we found many interesting things on our visit to St Peter's, though much remained hidden. There are 454 gravestones in the churchyard. James Douglas’ grave is one of them, but we couldn’t find it. Many of the graves are very old and their inscriptions are unreadable now. James died in 1819 and was Chaplain to the Prince Regent. If we’d known the shape of his grave, we might have stood a chance. Perhaps it is number 192 with its pointed top, or the crutch cross on 124. Number 364 is a family plot, so that was out, and 209 is unassumingly small.

Among the gravestones, under the yew trees, the churchyard marks a lot of life; many different lives from different times. Len was here in 1985 and Zak in 2015. They carved their names into the Sussex sandstone that runs down the side of the church walls. Sandstone is softer than flint - it’s almost impossible to carve your name into that. AB wrote their initials in neat Roman capitals, possibly in 1923, but we’ll never know for sure.

Inside the church, screwed to the wall, is a dark metal plaque commemorating the death of Edward Howard, who died on the 9th of December 1897 of fever in West Africa. It’s hard to read how old he was. Some of the words, the important ones like first letters and numbers, have been painted bright red and have lasted. They stand out on the plaque, drawing your attention as you walk through the door, but keeping their secrets like a cypher. The other words, presumably painted another colour like gold, have worn away over time. We know Edward died on the 9th of December, but we don’t know how old he was. We have to guess at that. The fact the plaque states he was the eldest son of Adolphus and Catherine suggests he was young. But that’s just a guess.

The church marks a lot of life.