The scattered remnants of the tombs, circa 1990, show the burial pits mostly filled with soil washed down from higher levels of the steep slope of Wilberforce Cemetery. At that time, most of the stone material needed to reconstruct the double gravesite was still available, although broken. Much of the damage was the deliberate work of vandals, including some young people rampaging around on motor bikes before the protective boundary fence was built around the cemetery. The moss & lichen-covered pieces (dark greenish-grey in colour) lying around the edges of the site originally formed the roof (top slab) of each vault.
Not only were the top slab pieces broken and lichen-covered, they were very weathered, being made of Hawkesbury sandstone. However the men who took various photos in the early 1990s did their best to decipher the inscriptions before carefully stacking the stones to protect them from further weathering. Years beforehand, Deb Bushell's family members also recorded their interpretation of the words carved into the weathered stones, and the two sets of words have been amalgamated into the versions appearing below.
Because reassembly of all the dark pieces did not occur, the transcriptions were recorded in no particular order. However, by matching them with the photographic record of individual pieces, an attempt can be made to reconstruct the grave site.
Unfortunately, Paul's transcription is the most fragmented, but one of the old photos provided by Tony Bushell does show the letters PAU at the bottom left hand edge of a broken segment containing the two David Brown memorials. Along the top of the next photo - of a segment which fits neatly, like a jigsaw puzzle - the remaining wording for Paul is just discernible . The combined inscription reads:
In Memory Of
David Brown
A.D. 1826
Also
David Brown
A.D. 1837
Also
Paul Bushell died ? 1853 Aged 84
The figures in red (from parish records) fill in the gaps in various transcriptions of worn stonework. In Paul's case, his relatives gave his age at death as 84, but according to his baptismal record he was 86.
Crammed onto this top slab, just below Paul's inscription, are the words of remembrance for his daughter-in-law Corah:
Also to the memory
of Corah Bushell
of Corah Bushell
the Beloved wife of Paul Bushell Jun
who departed this life
January 22 1865
aged 26 years
The words for Paul's mother-in-law Eleanor are squeezed in at the bottom of the slab:
Also to the memory of
Eleanor Brown who departed
this life April 10 1865
aged 84 years
Part of a second top slab rests against an adjoining headstone:
Sacred
to the memory of Ann Brown
Daughter of Mr. David & Mrs.
Eilener [sic] Brown who departed this
life Aug 15th 1819 aged 12 years
The remainder of this second top slab appears to be devoid of inscriptions.
Possibly on the side, or at one end, of this second false coffin was the following inscription, for which we don't have a photographic record at present:
Also
Selina Brown died
March the 4th A.D. 1847
Aged 3 years & 10 months
(If anyone has a relevant photo, please contact Louise Wilson.)Photographic evidence of much cleaner stonework, proving it was not so exposed to the elements, suggests that the following memorial stood vertically at the eastern end of the vault:
In
memory of
Isabella Bushell
died 14 August 1883
aged 80 years
One of Deb Bushell's photos shows the western end of the old vault. It is just possible to decipher the words Mary Brown, and from another old photo the actual inscription was something like:
In memory of
Mary Brown
beloved wife of David Brown Jun
died March 21 1895
aged 85 years
Mary's was the ninth and final burial in the two vaults for the combined Brown/Bushell family at Wilberforce Cemetery. Cathy McHardy's book 'Sacred to the Memory' classifies this burial site as RR07.21, with ten burials, her 'extra person' being a David Brown Snr, who died 8 Jan 1853, aged 51. However the family has no knowledge of such a person, despite extensive and thorough family history research in recent decades, and his burial is not recorded in parish registers. Because she could not disturb the piles of stones, and she did not have knowledge of the family's own photographic evidence and transcriptions, Cathy necessarily relied on Errol Lea Scarlett's cemetery transcriptions of 1953. This latest research concludes that Scarlett's transcriptions contain an error.
On the uphill side of the vaults, in site RR07.23, Cathy records the burial of an infant grandchild of Isabella Bushell (through her eldest son William Brown), and we have photographic evidence of a fragment of the baby's headstone, as well as a family transcription (with the correct age showing in red):
Sacred
to
the memory of
the memory of
David Charles Brown
who died
the 20th of June A.D. 1853
aged 5 months
A stonemason will now have an excellent idea of the task at hand, and will be able to provide a well-informed quote. Once the restoration cost has been determined, the task of raising the money can begin.
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