_North Sides of Churchyards unconsecrated_ (Vol. ii., p. 55.).--In
illustration of, not in answer to, Mr. Sansom's inquiry, I beg to offer
the following statement. During a long series of years an average of
about 150 corpses has been annually deposited in Ecclesfield churchyard,
which has rendered it an extremely crowded cemetery. But,
notwithstanding these frequent interments, my late sexton told me that
he remembered when there was scarcely one grave to the north of the
church, it being popularly considered that only suicides, unbaptised
persons, and still-born children ought to be buried there. However, when
a vicar died about twenty-seven years ago, unlike his predecessors, who
had generally been buried in the chancel, he was laid in a tomb on the
north side of the churchyard, adjoining the vicarage. From this time
forward the situation lost all its evil reputation amongst the richer
inhabitants of the parish, who have almost entirely occupied it with
family vaults.
Whether the prejudice against the north side of our churchyard arose
from an idea that it was unconsecrated, I cannot tell but I suspect
that, from inherited dislike, the poor are still indisposed towards it.
When the women of the village have to come to the vicarage after
nightfall, they generally manage to bring a companion, and hurry past
the gloomy end of the north transept as if they knew
"that close behind
Some frightful fiend did tread."
I cannot help fancying that the objection is attributable to a notion
that evil spirits haunt the spot in which, possibly from very early
times, such interments took place as my sexton described. As a
suggestion towards a full solution of this popular superstition, I would
ask whether persons who formerly underwent ecclesiastical
excommunication were customarily buried on the north side of
churchyards?
Alfred Gatty.
Ecclesfield, June 28. 1850.
I can only give from recollection a statement of a tradition, that when
Jesus Christ died he turned his head towards the south; and so, ever
since, the south side of a church has the pre-eminence. There generally
is the bishop's throne, and the south aisle of ancient basilicas was
appropriated to men. Simple observation shows that the supposed sanctity
extends to the churchyard,--for there the tombstones lie thickest.
I find that my source of information for the {127} tradition was
Cockerell's last lecture on Architecture, _Athenæum_ for 1843, p. 187.
col. 3.