These Mortal Remains is a contemporary photographic survey that began in October 2023 for which I'm attempting to document interesting and unique funerary monuments within our historic parish churches, focusing primarily on Greater London and neighbouring churches that perimeter the M25 motorway within the Home Counties.
Despite having a fervent interest in english history beforehand, this project was initially inspired during a visit to St Mary’s church in Walthamstow Village which has an extraordinary collection of monuments spanning several centuries and design periods. This important visit combined with encountering The King's England topographical book series by Arthur Mee and the photographic works of C.B.Newham in his book Country Church Monuments deeply informed and inspired me to kickstart this project.
The saying ‘if you wish to know about local history, visit your local church’ is undoubtedly a core belief of this project as generally our parish churches are as old as the villages and towns they reside in for which generations of history are physically recorded through art and architecture. In particular, our church monuments immortalise former citizens, from nobility to commoners, who may have otherwise been forgotten to time. Their monuments are a nationally important aspect of social and artistic history which showcases outstanding craftsmanship from a bygone age, different tastes and changes in monumental style throughout the periods including the fashions of the people commemorated and most easily overlooked is the amount of heraldry we are presented with.
My hopes for this project are to simply raise awareness and to inform the general public to visit historic churches wherein they can discover centuries worth of history both of local and national significance, with the monuments themselves being an example of the hidden treasures that make visiting these buildings rewarding and equally immersive.
The project itself is mainly presented on my Instagram @these_mortal_remains