This section of the Pittville History Works website contains images of the gravestones and other memorials of Pittville residents at St Mary’s, Prestbury. As Pittville developed from the 1830s onwards – without its own church – St Mary’s became one of the churches to which Pittville inhabitants would turn for worship, community, baptism, marriage, and finally burial.
The church itself is medieval, but was comprehensively restored in the 1860s under the direction of George Street, the church architect who was a leading practitioner of the Victorian Gothic Revival. It may have appealed to Pittville residents who were of a High Church rather than Evangelical persuasion; for more than a century from 1825 onwards the vicars were members of the same family (or appointed by them), and established a High Church tradition, with John Edwards, the vicar from 1860 to 1884, being particularly strongly influenced by the Oxford Movement.
Many of the inscriptions are heavily worn, and we have relied on the transcriptions in Burials and Monumental Inscriptions of St Mary’s Church andChurchyard, Prestbury, Gloucestershire, published in 1999 by the Gloucestershire Family History Society. We are grateful for their permission to use this work. The transcriptions, along with others, are included on a CD entitled Monumental Inscriptions 2003 which is available from the Society (www.gfhs.org.uk).
We are also grateful to Lynda Hodges, churchwarden at St Mary’s, who made the plans of the churchyard available to us during our visit in August 2017 and shared much of her extensive knowledge.
We hope to add further records in due course.
Gravestone and memorial photographs are by Terry Langhorn.
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This section of the Pittville History Works website contains images of the gravestones and other memorials of Pittville residents at St Mary’s, Prestbury. As Pittville developed from the 1830s onwards – without its own church – St Mary’s became one of the churches to which Pittville inhabitants would turn for worship, community, baptism, marriage, and finally burial.
