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John Atcherley and Anne Parton, following their marriage in 1797, had ten children. Sadly, four of their daughters, and their only son, died in infancy or early childhood. Their graves are marked by two large, flat stones. The inscription on the one pictured above cannot be read in full because of grass growing over its right-hand side. Fortunately a transcription made by the Shropshire Family History Society some years ago enables me to fill in the gaps:
Mary Daughter of John and Ann
Atcherley of Stanwardine
died Novr. 25th 1803 aged 6
Months
Martha Daughter of John and
Ann Atcherley died July 18
1806 Age One year and 5
Months
Next to Mary and Martha, three more Atcherley siblings were laid to rest: John, another Mary, and the longest-lived of these unfortunate children, Jane:
John Son of John and Ann
Atcherley of Stanwardine
April 4th 1807 Aged
Seven Weeks.
Mary Daughter of John and Ann
Atcherley died April 1st
1812 Aged One Year and
Two Months.
Jane Daughter of John and
Ann Atcherley died Decr
21st 1820 Aged Six Years
and Four Months.
Thy will be done.
The graves of the infant Atcherleys lie next to the final resting place the children’s grandparents, which is marked by a flat-topped tomb chest. The inscription on the south side of the chest, just about legible despite more than two centuries of weathering and lichen growth reads:
In
Respectful Memory of
THOMAS ATCHERLEY
of Stanwardine in the Fields
who departed this Life April 7th
1796 Aged 71 Years.
The MI on the darker and damper north side of the chest meanwhile has been affected not by lichens but by algae, and reads:
IN Respectful Memory of
Hannah the Wife of the late Thomas
Atcherley late of Stanwardine in the
Fields who departed this life May the
18th 1810 aged 64 years.
The marriage of Thomas Atcherley and Hannah Cureton in 1770 was the first of two Atcherley-Cureton weddings. The second was between Thomas and Hannah’s son William Atcherley and Hannah’s niece Mary Cureton. The upright tomb chest of William and Mary lies immediately to the east of the chest beneath which Thomas and Hannah were buried (see MIs at Baschurch All Saints (2)).
On the other side of Thomas and Hannah Atcherley’s tomb chest lies that of Thomas’s sister and brother-in-law, Thomas and Mary Birch. Thomas Birch (baptised at Baschurch All Saints on 2 Dec 1730) married Mary Atcherley in 1754. The inscription on the south side of the chest is as follows:
In
MEMORY OF
MARY Wife of
Thomas Birch
who died Feby 25th 1792
AGED 62
The chest also bears inscriptions dedicated to Mary’s husband “THOMAS BIRCH late of Fennemere” who died 2 Nov 1787, and the couple’s eldest son, “JOHN BIRCH of Fennemere” who died unmarried at the age of 42 and was buried on 6 Dec 1798.
The photo above shows the tomb chests of Thomas and Hannah Atcherley on the left and of Thomas, Mary and John Birch on the right. Appropriately enough, Thomas, Mary and John lie beneath a trio of birch trees. Some distance behind these two tomb chests, four more can be seen just to the right of a yew tree. Beneath three of them, more members of the Atcherley family were buried …
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