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The Atcherley grave markers situated furthest from Baschurch All Saints church are pictured above. (In the background, right of centre, the Atcherley tomb chests described on MIs at Baschurch All Saints (2) and (3) can be seen.) Only three of the four tomb chests shown here bear inscriptions, the one lying second from the right showing no signs of any words being carved into the stone.
The first chest bears two inscriptions. The MI on the south side, pictured above reads:
In Memory of
JAMES ATCHERLEY
Late of Shrewsbury,
who died May 27th 1834
aged 50 years.
May angels guard thy sleeping dust.
Lieutenant James Atcherley of the Worcestershire Militia was the sixth and youngest son of Thomas Atcherley and his wife Hannah (Cureton). He married Mary Dixon in 1811.
The north-facing side of the chest, not being exposed to direct sunlight, is covered in algae. The inscription, dedicated to James’s wife, is difficult to make out in places but reads:
Sacred to the memory of
MARY wife of JAMES ATCHERLEY
who died March 21st 1866
Aged 76 Years
After the death of James in 1834, Mary and her daughter Jane Atcherley lived with Mary’s unmarried brother Joseph Dixon at Betton in the parish of Berrington, which is very likely where Mary died.
The third chest marks the burial place of James’s brother Richard Atcherley, and of Richard’s wife and youngest daughter. Of the three inscriptions on the chest, it is the one on the north side, dedicated to Richard (shown above), which is the most legible:
SACRED to the Memory of
RICHARD ATCHERLEY
of Stanwardine in the Fields who
Died November 4th 1834
Aged 61 Years
Richard married Mary Jones in 1807. The MI on the south-facing side, now almost unreadable, recorded Mary’s death on 17 Nov 1860 at the age of 80, while that on the end of the chest facing west, now only partially visible, appears have read:
In Memory of
Ann daughter of Richard
and Mary Atcherley who
died June 27th 1816
aged Nine Weeks.
The fourth chest tomb is made from a different type of stone, probably the same red Sandstone from which Baschurch All Saints itself was constructed. The inscriptions upon its sides recorded the deaths of the above Richard and Mary Atcherley’s son Thomas Atcherley on 13 Jun 1859 at the age of 48, Thomas’s daughter Sarah on 20 Nov 1865, aged 15, and, as shown in the photo above (though her name is no longer visible):
SACRED to the memory of Jane
The Affectionate and Beloved wife of
THOMAS ATCHERLEY
of Stanwardine in the Fields, who
died Sepr. 16th 1855
Aged 36 Years.
Thomas Atcherley married Jane Eaton in her home parish of Cardington in south Shropshire in 1847. Thomas’s sister Hannah Atcherley meanwhile had married Robert Pembrey in 1843. She predeceased her husband, and the MI on her gravestone, which faces the four tomb chests described above, is shown below:
The inscription reads:
In affectionate remembrance of
HANNAH
Wife of Mr. Robert Pembrey
Late of Eastwick,
who departed this life
April 10th. 1875, aged 67 years
Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord.