ONE OF THE JOYS OF VISITING parish churches in England and Wales is discovering the monuments they contain. Unlike the other items that one regularly encounters inside churches, such as fonts, stained glass and furnishings, monuments come in all shapes, sizes and ages; everything from humble wall tablets with just a name and date of death to huge vainglorious piles of marble with lengthy inscriptions extolling the virtues of those commemorated.
Monuments can tell us a great deal about the past and the lives of the people who lived in those times. Tombs with effigies can show us the clothes or
