These Mortal Remains is a contemporary photographic survey that began in October 2023 for which I attempt 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.
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, however I would also be doing a disservice by not mentioning the photographic works of C.B.Newham and his book Country Church Monuments which has deeply informed and inspired me to kickstart this project. Apart from Greater London the project has already taken me to churches in Berkshire, Hampshire, Nottinghamshire and East Anglia.
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 architecture and sculpture. 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.
To conclude, my hopes for this project are to raise awareness and 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 just some of the hidden treasures that makes the visit rewarding and allows one to immerse themselves with historic element more intimately.
The project itself is mainly presented on Instagram however I will be adding to this blog when possible particularly for non-social media users but I eventually intend to release a book upon completion of this project - @these_mortal_remains