In 2018 the New Forest National Park Authority ran a landscape scheme, Our Past, Our Future (supported by Heritage Lottery funding), and worked with parishioners to survey the condition of, and record the monuments in Emery Down graveyard. The survey helped map and identify monuments for conservation. The database created will assist the ongoing management of the graveyard and be useful for genealogical research and we plan to provide a link to it in the future.
Click here for more details of the memorial survey.
Churchyard Memorial Survey
Photo shows volunteers surveying the churchyard.
Headstones before and after Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI).
Making it clear
Archaeovision took part in the first day of the survey for its Rediscovering and Conserving Our Archaeological Heritage project. Amongst its many aims was discovering forest heritage and developing community archaeology. A first stage in the programme was heritage recording in Emery Down churchyard.
Click here for the Archaeovision’s ‘Emery Down Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI)’ report.
The Lychgate
We have researched the lives of the 26 men whose names are inscribed in the lychgate and those commemorated on headstones in the churchyard. Please click here to view a Powerpoint presentation giving brief details of each man. We hope to inscribe on the lychgate the names of the four soldiers who were killed in WW2 when a bomb hit Allum Green House.
The men lying in the Commonwealth War Graves are Frederick Thomas Sheardown, James Albert Witt, Charles Frederick Richards and Frederick Ernest William Veal. The graves of Privates Sheardown and Witt are in front of the church and those of Sergeants Richards and Veal are behind the church.
When you visit the church please pick up leaflet giving details of the lychgate and of the men in the Commonwealth War Graves.