Friends of Heene Cemetery have recorded 850 headstone inscriptions in the cemetery. 986 of the burials have inscriptions that start with the message: ‘In loving memory’ and many contain religious or spiritual phrases such as ‘For God is love’. Several make a reference to the future or after life such as 'rest in peace' or 'until we meet again'. Some inscriptions only include descriptive information such as name and death year, a few mention the name of a place while others contain occupation clues and abbreviations relating to qualifications, honours and medals.
Some words frequently appear on inscriptions and some less so. Not surprisingly, 'memory' refers to 1375 burials and 'loving' to 1091 individuals. Words referring to family members are also frequently used, these include: 'wife' (336), 'husband' (167), 'daughter' (111), 'mother' (70), son (57), 'widow' (47) and 'father' (44) whereas 'dad' only appears 5 times, 'mum' gets a mere 3 mentions and niece occurs twice. Religious words are also common: 'sacred' appears 97 times, 'peace' has 86 mentions and 'God' has 36 listings. Place names are uncommon except for Heene which is referenced 206 times, other place names include: London 12 times, Sussex 3 mentions, Westminster twice and India once. There are 16 'J.P.'s, 13 'M.D.'s and a massive 49 'Rev's. There are only 2 listings of 'beauty', 'brave' and 'because' and only one 'escaped', 'wipe', 'twin' and 'proud'.
Phrases that are popular within inscriptions include: 'Peace Perfect Peace'. This alliterative phrase applies to 82 burials engraved on over 50 headstones. It was first used in a hymn whose lyrics were written in 1875 by Edward H. Bickersteth. Bickersteth may have received inspiration from Isaiah 26: 3 'You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast because they trust in
you'. It is particularly poignant when used at a time of war. Master Mariner, Henry Potts Wight, had the character defining, succinct phrase: 'In whom was no guile' inscribed on his headstone.
Of the 1960 burials in the cemetery, 72 had no plot recorded and are nominally listed as being sited in our memorial garden to the right of the entrance gate. For a further 205 burials, no headstone was found and for another 3 the headstone writing was totally erased. Headstones have been lost or buried for about 130 burials. Their site of burial is known and they are recorded as being buried under another headstone on that plot. About 450 individuals have their own unique headstone and plot. The remaining headstones (400ish) are shared between two or more related people and about 80 inscriptions cover two adjacent plots. Several headstone inscriptions honour people not buried in the cemetery, some of these refer to soldiers killed in battle and others to infants buried elsewhere.
Pat Brownbill
Thanks to contributions from FoHC members