St James's churchyard holds a thousand years of Somerton people, most of them in unmarked or long-weathered graves. This page is a first guide to it: a sketch plan of the monuments that are listed for their age and interest, and a list of the people we know are buried here, with where to read more.
The plan is a sketch, not a survey. The positions come from the descriptions in the historic listings, such as "approximately 5 metres east of the chancel", so treat them as a guide when you visit. We have not marked any modern graves.
The listed monuments
The churchyard cross, about 12 metres north of the church. Medieval, Grade I listed: an octagonal shaft about 1.5 metres high on a four-step base, with worn carvings on the head and carved heads at the corners of the base. It may mark a place of worship older than the church itself. The Norman Period
A group of four headstones, about 1700, about a metre north of the north aisle, between the path and the church wall. Small marlstone stones carved with a cross standing on a skull and crossed bones; the dates 1692, 1695 and 1704 can still be made out, but the names cannot. The cross was very unusual on English headstones before the mid nineteenth century and may point to Catholic families. Catholicism in Somerton
The Dew chest tomb, near the east end of the chancel, about 1808. It commemorates Marten Dew, who died in 1808, and Mary Dew, who died in 1833.
A headstone of about 1670, about 5 metres east of the chancel, carved with an hourglass. The inscription is mostly illegible apart from the date 1670.
The Collingridge memorials, about a metre east of the south aisle, which is the Fermor chapel. Four small headstones of 1688 and 1690 are the earliest of around twenty Collingridge memorials, with several footstones, running into the early twentieth century. Nearly all carry a cross, which may again show a Catholic connection. The Collingridges were farmers, and William Collingridge is Somerton's earliest named shopkeeper, in 1814. Doing the Shopping
Source: the National Heritage List entries for St James's churchyard, quoted on our Listed Buildings page.
Others we know are buried here
We do not know exactly where these graves are. If you do, please tell us.
The Rev. Robert Clifton, rector from 1831 to 1861, who is buried in the churchyard alongside a son who died before him. The Good, the Bad & the Absent
John Henry Allen, of the Allotment Cottages, discharged from the army with tuberculosis, who died on 18 December 1916 aged twenty and was buried at Somerton five days later. He is one of the seven names on the war memorial. The Soldiers of Somerton
Mahala Blaby, whose memorial is linked with the unusual Victorian terracotta gravestones in the churchyard. Rosemary Arnold's article on them is in preparation. Mahala Blaby & the Terracotta Gravestones
The churchyard holds one Commonwealth war grave. Corporal Phillip Lancelot Minett of the Royal Air Force, service number 612929, died on 10 August 1944, aged 28. He was the son of William Lancelot and Dorothy Haynes Minett, of Somerton, and his headstone reads "Not as I will but as Thou wilt". The record does not say how he died. (CWGC record)
More names from Find a Grave
The volunteer website Find a Grave lists 105 memorials for St James's, added by its members, about a third of them with a photograph. Some are headstones in the churchyard, some are monuments inside the church, and some are burials recorded from the parish registers. Where it gives a month rather than a day, that is usually when the death was registered. We have not yet checked these entries against the stones or the registers, but many of the names belong to people who appear elsewhere on this site:
The Rev. George Edward Barnes (1847-1923), rector for 48 years, and Elizabeth Mary Diana Barnes (died 1936), who is probably his widow, the Mrs Barnes who gave the village hall in his memory. Find a Grave · The Village Hall
James Baldwin (1860-1918), baker, shopkeeper and sub-postmaster, with other members of the Baldwin family from Thomas Baldwin (died 1837) to Mabel Emily Baldwin (died 2008). Find a Grave · Doing the Shopping
Emanuel Moore (1830-1898), shopkeeper in the 1895 directory. Find a Grave
Elizabeth Wood Godwin (1813-1902), miller in 1852, and Charles Godwin, buried on 16 January 1850 aged 33 after being found drowned: the mealman of Somerton Mill who drowned walking home from Bicester market. Find a Grave · The village trail
Phillip Joachim (died 21 January 1865), landlord of the Railway Tavern, who died only seventeen days after his wedding. Find a Grave · The Railway
Isaac Berridge (1797-1877), farmer, surveyor and estate agent. Find a Grave
Jonathan Plumbe (1846-1920) and others of the Plumb and Plumbe family, Somerton's blacksmiths through the nineteenth century. Find a Grave · Economic Life
Thomas Edwin Emberlin (1870-1955), who bought Manor Farm in 1919 and became lord of the manor, with Ethel and Kathleen Emberlin. Find a Grave · 1919 Estate Families
Philippa Maria Ramsay Dewar (died 1853), whose monument in the church shows her dying in childbirth, and other members of the Ramsay family. Find a Grave · St James's Church
The Fermors, from William Fermor (died 1552) to William Fermor (died 1828), and Colonel Thomas Morgan, husband of Jane Fermor, killed at the first Battle of Newbury in 1643, whose ledger stone is in the Fermor chapel. Find a Grave · The Fermor Family
Richard Todkill (1579-1656), schoolmaster, buried inside the church (spelt Todhill on our School page), William Tempest (died 1630) and William Mynne (1586-1665). Find a Grave · The School
Daryl Lee Grant (1973-1991), in whose memory two bells were hung, Jerry Grant (1949-1999) and Jim Barbour (1937-2005). Find a Grave · Fondly Remembered
Other Somerton families on the list include Bayliss, Gibbard, Golder, Green, Hopcroft, Hudson, Kirby, Mitchell, Neale, Nicholls, Smith, Taylor, Waddup, Waine and Welsh, and a family called Somerton.
Inside the church
Some of Somerton's dead lie inside St James's rather than in the churchyard. The Fermors have their tombs in the Fermor chapel, and family members were still being laid in the Fermor vault in 1817 and 1828, long after the family moved to Tusmore. The gravestones of two of the free school's masters, Richard Todhill, who died in 1656, and Thomas Dutton, master for fifty-two years, who died in 1691, are also in the church. The Fermor Family · The School
An older burial ground
Not all of Somerton's early burials are in the churchyard. Graves found beneath the old school in the nineteenth century, and twelve more in Castle Yard in 1953 and 1969, some with a slab of limestone over the skull, suggest a burial ground there before or soon after the Norman Conquest. Lost Somerton
Can you help?
Alice Bowmaker used to take the village children to clean the headstones and make rubbings of the inscriptions. If anyone kept those rubbings, or has a list or plan of the graves, we would love to see it. We would also like to know where the Clifton, Allen and Blaby graves are, and about any other headstones with a story. Out of respect for families, we will not add anyone who died in the last two years unless their family would like us to.
Did you grow up in Somerton, or does this article bring back a memory? Do you spot something that needs correcting or adding? Rosemary Arnold and Della Paviour would love to hear from you.