Several generations of the Monk and Matthews families lie under three large, slab headstones opposite the entrance to the church of St Mary and St Helen, Neston. The stones have aged very badly through the years and today reveal very little about those who lie beneath. The story was the same even a hundred years ago, according to a writer going by the name ‘Quill Pen’, who described it as below, with more poetry than I could muster.
The old-time Nestonians rest under the oblong flags in the ancient portion of the churchyard. There is a fashion in gravestones as in most things, and our old dead, when they laid them down for their long sleep, were content with the coverlids of native red stone. Who shall say that they do not sleep well? “There is equality in the grave”, they seem to have said to themselves, “why, then, seek to outrival and overtop your neighbour’s tombstone? Let us be!”
From “A Neston Elopement” (by Quill Pen). The Chester Courant and Advertiser for North Wales 10th July 1907.
“So through the long years the old stones have nestled lower and yet lower in the yielding lap of Mother Earth, the dewy grasses persistently striving to hide them from the passer-by, while the grey lichens and brown-green mosses have so jealously tried to fill in the inscriptions and tried to blot the old names out of remembrance.
Another hundred years have passed since the above was written, and the old gravestones have now been worn almost entirely flat by the elements. The text is all but gone, with only the shadow of a few indistinct letters still to be seen. Among a bundle of papers relating to John’s life is the following transcription of the family gravestones, helpfully noted down by an unknown hand in about 1860, in the years before his death.
Here lie the Remains of John Matthew’s Family in the Parish Church Yard Neston
1st Grave Stone:
Catherine wife of John Matthews of Moorside
Died 10th of September 1744 aged 28
John Matthews of Moorside
Died 20th of January 1799 aged 90
Elizabeth wife of John Matthews
Died 26th of December 1807 aged 81
Joseph Monk grandson of the above John Matthews
Died 12th of October 1857 aged 712nd Grave Stone:
Elizabeth daughter of John and Elizabeth Matthews
Died 26th of October 1790
William Hutchinson
Died 22nd March 1833 aged 77
Also Ann wife of William Hutchinson and grand daughter of John Matthews
Died 20th of April 1840 aged 843rd Gravestone:
John Matthews ship builder of Parkgate
Died 14th of March 1732 aged 67
Margaret relict of the above
Died 26th of April 1735 aged 68.
Esther wife of William Monk and grand daughter of the above
Died January 30th 1829 aged 70
Also William Monk of Parkgate
Died September 6th 1831 aged 78.4th Gravestone:
Joseph Hughes
Died 21st of March 1801 aged 58
Also Arabella wife of the above and grand daughter of John Matthews
Died May 1824 aged 68
