10. Churchyard, Cemetery and Registers
CHURCHYARD
The churchyard was closed for burials in 1886, when a small cemetery was provided on the hillside facing the east end of the church. The churchyard wall features in records as far back as 1631 as needing repair! 19th and 20th century minutes often feature the matter!
The height of the ground above surrounding pavements illustrates the re-use of the same area several times to cope with more than two thousand burials recorded in the registers over five centuries. Registers record that Simon Marriot, tailor, and his son Robert, Thomas Borros, weaner, and Richard Wills, shoemaker, were all buried the day after that they were “kild all together with thunder and lightning Julie the 27th in the year 1691”.
Although the responsibility of the civil parish council, the churchyard mowing was for many years a joint affair whereby the PCC provided the mowing machine and found a volunteer and the parish council made a contribution. From 2024, the parish council included the churchyard in its tender and contract for the mowing of the village greens and the cemetery.
In 2018, during the sloping of the south porch floor and the installation of increased soak-away provision for rainwater in the east gate path, bones from many skeletons were disturbed. These were all reinterred to the north of the kitchen / toilet extension.
Four of the chest tombs are listed grade 2 as being of special architectural and historic interest in their own right (English Heritage ‘Building’ No: 360661 and 360662). Two of these are: the chest tomb 8ft. east of the chancel topped by a huge well weathered slab of red sandstone – a memorial to John Rushall who was buried on May 12, 1696; and the tilted chest tomb next south with a nice carving at its east end recording the burial of William Goodman, son of Richard and Catherine, on April 4, 1717.
The Watkins’ family and the related Uniackes, who lived at Badby House and funded much of the 1880-1 reconstruction, had the largest of the chest style monuments located outside the south east corner of the south aisle.
In the far south east corner of the churchyard are two slate headstones with fine engraving: one for Mary Pearson, who died 21 February 1770 and the other for William Pearson, died 6 October 1772.
The Northamptonshire Family History Society undertook a survey in 2016 of the gravestones and memorials in the churchyard (and the cemetery) and produced a booklet of Memorial Inscriptions for Badby (ISBN 978-1-913157-00-5, 2016).
During 2019 and 2020, the west boundary dry-stone wall of the churchyard was repaired and the north wall rebuilt by Badby Parish Council.
GHP 29/3/2024
CEMETERY
Click here for full details of the cemetery compiled for Badby Parish Council in 2022.
There are maps of the various parts and plots in the cemetery and lists of those buried.
REGISTERS
Current registers for baptisms, weddings and funerals are kept securely at the church. They are available by request to a churchwarden.
Earlier registers, going back so far as 1655, are held at the Northamptonshire Archives Service housed at Wootton Hall Park, Mereway, Northampton NN4 8BQ.
GHP 28/7/2022