Randell/Randle Headstones at Berry Pomeroy, Devon

Have you ever been to a cemetery and transcribed headstones?

Who am I kidding … of course you have!

Well I had too, but just to local cemeteries around my own state of South Australia. But on my trip to England earlier this year I got to not only visit so many ancestral towns, but also find and transcribe a bunch of ancestors headstones too.

In this post I want to share with you the photos that I took at the little town of Berry Pomeroy in Devon, but first here’s what Wikipedia has to say about the town …

 “Berry Pomeroy is a village, civil parish and former manor in the former hundred of Haytor, today within South Hams district of Devon, England, about two miles east of Totnes. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 973.”

This is a town that my Randell family has connections to, and as you would expect all genie-nuts to do, we made a bee-line straight to the local church looking for graves.

Before I get into the graves themselves, I should start off by mentioning that my emigrating Randell ancestors all had their surname spelt as RANDELL. However their baptism records from Devon all clearly show RANDLE. And just to confuse the issue, the passenger list they’re on to me looks like RANDALL (you can view the “Hartley” passenger list from 1837 here). I don’t know why the change in spelling, but at least it’s been consistent since they came out.

Now back to the headstones … this was a very cool cemetery. Lots of old graves that surround the church as I guess many are in England. Some were angled facing downwards, and while I thought that was a bit weird, it has at least preserved the inscription. Although it did make them rather hard to read. I also found that at least in this cemetery they tended to group family members together in the same section of the cemetery. So when I found one ancestors grave, I found several others alongside. Bingo!

To say that I was a happy little vegemite would be an understatement (I would say i was bordering on hyper) as I was actually in a cemetery in England where my great great great whatever ancestors were buried.  I mean how cool is that!

We (and when I say we, it was myself together with my mum and dad), found four Randle graves, three of which we were able to transcribe (or at least mostly, one sadly is too badly weathers to work out other than it has the Randle surname.

 

 SACRED
TO THE MEMORY OF
MARY ANN RANDLE
WAS BORN MAY5th 1810
AND DIED June 13 1850
Looking for that blessed hope
and the glorious appearing of the
great God and our Saviour Jesus
Christ:  Titus ii.13

————————————————————-

 

Sacred
To the Memory of
ELIZABETH RANDLE
wife of William Randle
whom it pleased the Almighty
to take from the Life the 21st
day of January 1828. Aged 19.
ALSO
to the memory of the abo__ [ve?]
WILLIAM RANDLE
who died June 15th 1858
Ages 82 Years

————————————————————-

 

Sacred
to the Memory of
George the fon[*] of William
and Elizabeth Randle ______ [unreadable]
the Almighty was pleased
take from this _______ [unreadable]
day of Feb 1815. Aged 8_ [unreadable]

[*note ‘f’ was a common letter for what we know as ‘s’ now]

————————————————————-

unfortunately all I can read on this one is the the first name ends
in “ard” and has the surname RANDLE

3 Responses to “Randell/Randle Headstones at Berry Pomeroy, Devon”

1. Deb Miller says:

   October 31, 2014 at 9:49 pm

   Fantastic Alona. Wonderful that the gravestones still exist after all this time.

   Reply
2. Jenni says:

   November 1, 2014 at 1:50 pm

   It’s wonderful how the English preserve their graveyards and yet here we have such short leases on ours. It is a wonderful experience standing at the grave of an ancestor, thanks for sharing.

   Reply
3. Merv Williams says:

   November 30, 2014 at 1:00 pm

   Hi Alona
   Great to see the photos of the church and headstones, and your transcriptions.

   I suspect that the lichen on the headstone has hidden part of the age of Elizabeth Randle. This should be 49. The LDS film #0916810 of Berry Pomeroy shows: Elizabeth Randle age 49 of Castle Mill buried 25 Jan 1828. (extracted 27 FEB 1996).

   There are two options for William born 1776. One born 19 SEP 1776, s/o Edward and Sarah (my 6GtUncle), the other born 29 OCT 1776, s/o Thomas and Susanna. No record of the marriage, so presumably it was held at Elizabeth’s parish. (There’s always more to find in this hobby!)

   The burial record for George gives age 11, Castle Mill, bur 27 FEB 1815. I did not find a birth/baptism record for George,but could have missed it as some films are hard to read.

   William and Elizabeth had at least 8 other children between 1805 and 1821. I can give details if interested.

   My Randle ancestors from Berry Pomeroy came out to NZ in 1861.

   Cheers
   Merv

   Reply