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Archiver > POWYS > 1999-12 > 0944639582


From: "john cullwick" <>
Subject: Re: Burial practices
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999 07:53:02 -0000


Hello Jean

Experience of the practices in CAE tell me that the tradition of burial in
the local pariah church (or a fairly local family plot in a neighbouring
parish) was no longer the rule at the time you are looking.

A huge proportion of the population now were members of one of these myriad
of chapels, and preferred to be buried with "like-minded folk". In the area
of Eifionydd (which included towns like Porthmadog, Criccieth and many
parishes) the Calvinist Methodists opened a burial ground attached to a
little chapel on the hillside there called Tai Duon. People from over 20
miles away were buried there - attached to at least 3 CM chapels in that
area.

So, if they were chapel folk, it will help to find their particular
denomination of chapel (on a marriage certificate?), then find where that
denomination buried in those days. Burials were usually well attended if
they were chapel folk and usually were of thanksgiving for the life of the
deceased - happier events than most modern funerals. If any were reported
in local papers you would see family and chapel connections and the chapel
often was the focal point of their lives - and tells us how they lived, who
they married etc.

And it is quite usual to see a group of graves belonging to one family - so
they must have purchased them in tranches usually rather than singly.
Again, I speak of my experience of Tai Duon, but it must have been roughly
the same elsewhere in Wales.

Best wishes

John Cullwick

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