Alabaster Tombs in Tideswell Church

Photo: Andrew Bower

September 8th, 2026

Ray State opened the autumn season of Hope Historical Society talks with a fascinating discussion of alabaster tombs in Derbyshire churches.
He began by giving a brief history of materials used in church memorials. Stone generally was preferred to wood and Purbeck marble, actually a fine limestone, was used from early times in churches. However, the discovery of alabaster in the East Midlands revolutionised the production of images. It is relatively soft and easy to carve giving a fine finish. Generally white, it was sometimes stained with iron oxide to give a reddish or pink colour. The area between Tutbury to Newark produced 90% of the stone used in churches from 1320 onwards until the 17th century when true marble became available. The centres for carving were in Nottingham and Chellaston in Derbyshire and, later, London. The stone for the latter was transported down the Trent to Hull and thence by sea.
Alabaster was used in for a wide variety of images: tombs, retables, reredos displays, wall monuments and fonts among many. They have been discovered under the floor of churches, hidden from the depredations of the Reformation in the 16th century. Ray illustrated many of these. He particularly showed many table monuments in the county and nearby and discussed the elements that were typical of early tombs. Apart from the figures themselves, they included a standard inscription, bedesmen to pray for the deceased to minimise their time in purgatory, angels, saints and weepers and, importantly, coats of arms that told the onlooker the identity of the commemorated people. The women were usually displayed in contemporary fashionable clothes but the armour of the men was often out of date, reflecting the fact that the carver had no model to copy. For the same reason, the face of the statues was almost always of a standard type and not a portrait. Locally, Ashford marble was sometimes used for the inscriptions.
Ray went on to demonstrate the evolution of these monuments, noting that after the Reformation, these highly esteemed carvings were often exported to Europe. Later monuments omitted many of the features of mediaeval tombs such as prayers, angels and bedesmen. He also emphasised the Dutch influence in this country from around 1600.
Ray gave us a valuable, well illustrated and informative evening.

John Talbot