Conservation in St Michaels & All Angels Graveyard Lyndhurst
Following mapping and survey of the churchyard at St Michaels & All Angels in Lyndhurst which can be read about here: Revealing the Secrets of St Michaels & All Angels.
Work has been undertaken to conserve some of the monuments identified as in need of some of attention. This has included three listed burials that can be found within the Graveyard as well as a number of other memorials. The objective of the conservation and repair work is to stabilise and repair the monuments and to remove them from the local Listed Buildings at risk register maintained by Historic England.
The conservation and repair works to the three listed tombs were undertaken with Heritage Lottery funding through the Our Past Our Future Landscape Partnership Scheme.
Other small conservation projects within the churchyard have included resetting fallen crosses and headstones and small corner repairs on additional chest tombs.
Tomb Chest 1094726
South-east of the chancel of the Church of St Michael and all Angels, Lyndhurst. On ground sloping away from the church to the east. Rectangular stone tomb chest with rusticated lines on sides. Moulded edges to lid with raised top panel. Inscription illegible.
The conservation work involved removing vegetation, removing the top slab, remoulding, repining with non-ferrous clamps, and repointing. The photos above show the tomb beforehand, during the works and at the end.
The listed tomb is recorded as having illegible inscription in the Historic England listing so as part of the conservation work we decided to investigate using Reflective Transformation Imaging (RTI). The process involves taking numerous photos of one monument with a raking light and then letting the computer do the hard work to produce some amazing results. If you are interested in learning more about RTI photography you can do: here.
Though it is still very difficult to read the RTI work did give us a name and some dates:
Sacred To the memory of
James M’Taggart ESQ
…
who departed this life
November 7th 1851
Aged 54?
Also to …
who departed this life
15th November 1889
Aged 75 years
_
Sliding Image showing results of RTI on top half of Tomb 1094726’s top slab
Two Tomb Chests 1167291
North of the Church of St Michael and all Angels, Lyndhurst. On land sloping steeply to the north and the High Street, A35 road. Stone eighteenth century half buried. Rectangular chests with overhanging flat lids with illegible inscriptions.
The location of these two tombs on a steep bank above the main road through Lyndhurst made conservation work very difficult. The work involved removal of vegetation, pinning of fractures, repair to internal brickwork, repointing and resetting of chest lids.