Inspired by the video I described in the preceding blog, I walked Tanybwlch beach again yesterday, enjoying the blazing sun and balmy breeze. The sea was almost waveless, clear and the deepest blue, and the shore, as usual, was almost deserted. I saw a family at the water’s edge, and a couple of people walking their dogs, and I passed one man who was seated watching his three terriers each of which was energetically digging its own hole in the sand. The sea, cracked only by a single ripple approaching the shore, looked like shot silk.
Three digging dogs
The graffiti artists on the concrete sea wall have been back and have further embellished the design which appeared on the drone video I had watched. The letters NHS are no longer brutalist boxy letters, now sporting serifs and curliques of a playful nature. The seated figure, on closer inspection, is a dead-eyed Boris debating whether or whether not to save the NHS. To the right are a series of weird heads, two gowned and masked blue front-liners, and then a group perhaps the public, some in outline, one with a covid mask. There is more wall yet to be painted, I think there is more work to be done there.
Graffiti at Tanybwlch beach
Graffiti at Tanybwlch beach
The right-hand end of the mural, yet to be coloured in?
The whole mural at Tanybwlch beach, possibly yet to be completed
It seems surprising now, that no-one has formerly set about embellishing this long wall. Here is a canvas comparable with some of the large murals created for the Upfest Festival in Bristol, and like many of those, it is on a topical theme. I have just noticed that the latest Upfest, which brings together British and international artists, was scheduled to take place this weekend, 30 May- 1 June 2020. I presume that like everything else, it has been postponed, though this is not confirmed on their website.
Following my last blog, a reader who goes on excursions with the Church Monuments Society has drawn my attention to another, much grander, chest tomb ornamented with footprints.
This is in East Yorkshire, in the 13th century church of St Nicholas, Hornsea. Here the chest tomb of Anthony St Quintin, a divine, who died in 1430, is densely ornamented with shoe outlines. They were even easier to carve than those in Anna Maria Hughes’s slate slab, for this grand tomb is made of alabaster.
Interpretation in the church suggests that these are Puritan footprints, and that the shoe shapes are consistent with the time of Charles II. Such an explanation does not help us with the footprints on the grave of a Welsh girl who died in 1777.
The alabaster tomb of Anthony St Quintin in St Nicholas, Church, Hornsea
Two other readers have mentioned not footprints but hand-prints in Wales. On a raised grave by the church door in Dolgellau are lots of children’s handprints of varying sizes, while there are life-size handprints around the top of the front boundary wall of the Quarry Hospital in Llanberis, Gwynedd. There may be several different stories behind these marks by which ordinary people left traces of their identity.
At the east end of Llanychaiarn Church is a rank of five chest tombs, to members of the Hughes family of Aberllolwyn and of Morfa, in the Parish of Llanychaiarn, ( Morfa Bychan as we now know it) The five slate stabs adjoin one another like tabletops. Together they tell the story of a couple of generations. But the right hand slab is remarkable for a rare piece of naive artwork, the meaning of which intrigues me.
Graves of members of the Hughes family of Aberlllolwyn and Morva at the east end of Llanychaiarn Church
The slab reads ‘ Here lies the interred body of Anna Maria Hughes, second daughter of John and Elizabeth Hughes of Morfa, who departed this life the 24th of March 1777 in the 16th year of her life’. Her epitaph reads:
Adieu blest maid, Return again to Dust, The’ Almighty bids to him submit we must These little Rites a Stone, a Verse receive
Tis all a parent, all a friend can give.
Hers was the first of the five burials. Next to her are the graves of her mother Elizabeth Hughes, her father John Hughes of Morva, her sister Elinor ( 1764-1845) and her uncle Erasmus Hughes, her mother’s brother. It was Erasmus who occupied Aberllolwyn and died there, a bachelor aged 73 in 1803. As his epitaph points out he spent his life much preoccupied with the hereafter.
His life was spent in meditation on the Holy Scriptures and resigned in the hope of Resurrection to immortal Glory through the Merits of his Redeemer whoom( sic) he steadfastly trusted.
What is remarkable is that in addition to the copperplate verse engraved on Anna Maria’s slab is a remarkable bit of graffiti, the outline of not one, but two footprints, in neat square-toed shoes. The individual square headed nails securing the heel are each carefully inscribed. The positioning of the two footprints is informal, contrasting with the neat symmetry of the ornament and inscriptions. I don’t believe they were done in the mason’s yard.
Footprint on the grave of Anna Maria Hughes who died in 1777
A second and different footprint at the foot of the grave
Who carved them upon young Anna Maria’s grave? And why? or when?
The other day I came across a very similar footprint, drawn on paper, in 1824. This was an example of a forensic drawing of footmarks at a crime scene:
A paper cut made in 1842 of left footprints in a turnip field at Sanquhar, Dumfries and Galloway
The shoe seems of a very similar style. What were shoes like in 1777? or was this carving added 50 years after her death?
I would love to hear of any other examples of footprint graffiti similar to this.
The full text of the other four graves is as follows:
1. Sacred to the Memory of Erasmus Hughes late of Aberllolwyn Esq., who died 13 March 1803 aged 73 years. His inscription reads: His life was spent in meditation on the Holy Scriptures and resigned in the hope of Resurrection to immortal Glory through the Merits of his Redeemer whoom( sic) he steadfastly trusted.
2. Sacred to the Memory of Elinor Hughes, daughter of John Hughes Esquire late of Morfa in the Parish of Llanychaiarn who departed this life 28th of January 1845 aged 81 years
3. Underneath lie the remains of John Hughes Esq late of Morfa second son of John Hughes Esq of Hendrevelen who exchanged this life for a Blessed Eternity the 27th day of October1806 in the 80th Year of his age. His epitaph reads:
Just upright merciful in all thy ways In Christian meekness spending here thy days
Sweet sleep in Jesus thou dost now enjoy Partaking happiness without alloy
4. Underneath lie the remains of Elizabeth second daughter of Thomas Hughes Esq late of Aberllolwne and wife of John Hughes Esq, of Morva both of this Parish who resigned her Soul to the Almighty giver the 12th day of November 1807 in the 71st year of her life. Her epitaph reads:
Adieu and long adieu thou ever dear Thou best of Parents and thou Friend sincere May thy survivors imitate thy worth And live to God as thou didst while on earth
They are an evocative series of memorials: Erasmus Hughes was the only son of Thomas Hughes and Elizabeth Lloyd. One of his sisters Mary, married Edward Hughes of Dyffryn-gwyn, Merioneth and another, Elizabeth, married John Hughes of Morva. On Erasmus’ death the Aberllolwyn estate passed first to his sister Mary Hughes, and then to his niece Elizabeth Jane, another of John and Elizabeth Hughes’ daughters. It is noteworthy that all these Hugheses seem to have married men already bearing the name Hughes.
