- Examining the heritage and history of Brighton through the lens of its oldest burial ground. Providing a Gazeteer of St Nicholas Gardens, tomb by tomb.
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Mortiquaria
- Corporal Staines – The Musical
- The Return of the Gent
- Francis Robertson and the Death of Kings
- Things fall apart
- Life Before Death and the Final Status Update
- Fanny Ricardo and the Father of Free Trade
- The Girl Soldier, The Poet and the Highwaymans Mother
- We Know Where The Bodies Are Buried
- John Walters – The Man Who Worked Too Hard
- Colonel Trickey and the End Of Time
- Richard Pahl and the Baby Blitz
- Mary Coupland and the Wall of Death
- Hard Times at Brighton – A Matchmans’ Tale
- Edward Colman and the ‘Job for Life’
- Martha Gunn and the Kings Evil
- A & AH Wilds and the Ups and Downs of Life
- Hanover Chapel Vault: Enough to Wake the Dead
- The Lady Eldona At Her Tower
- A Life Too Full To Fit – Sake Dean Mahomet
- Coded Mortiquaria
- Hilbers the Blood Royal Homeopath
- Laurentia Dorothea and the penniless portrait painter
- From revolution to nobility – the Baronesses Erskine
- Within the Vaults – Outlaws and Others
- Henry Smithers: Our most recent deceased.
- James Justinian Morier and the Adventures of Hajji Baba
- Sir Matthew Tierney: ‘The Bloody Baron of Brighthelmstone’
- Ghosts of the stones: if not the bones
- How to Empty a Graveyard
- How to Fill a Graveyard
- Smoaker Miles: Phantasmagoria, Swimming with Dr Johnson and other stories
- Stanley Stokes and the Lynch Mob – East Street 1836
- Captain Custard and the Northern Extension
- Lord Byron, Class War and the price of a Decent Send Off
- Buried ‘neath the snow
- Sir Richard Phillips and the skull of Cardinal Wolsey
- The Deathly Pyramid
- ‘The Log of a Jack Tar’; James Choyce 1777 – 1836
- John Rowles and the Battle of Tar Tub
- The Honest Hairdresser
- Conversation with the dead
- Graveyard Hauntings
- A Rest Garden Factuary
- Into the Labyrinth
- The Double Death of Anna Maria Crouch
- Mr Weiss and his Instrument of Certain Death
- Corporal Staines
- Martin Archer Shee (1789 – 1850)
- Funerary Violin and the Forgotten Vault
- Historical disorder
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Category Archives: Churchyard
Into the Labyrinth
Often visitors to older burial grounds assume that the box tomb – coffin shaped as it can be – holds the body of the deceased. Sometimes they will even pry away at loose capstones trying to peek within. The bones … Continue reading
Posted in Churchyard, St Nicholas
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The Double Death of Anna Maria Crouch
Born in Grays Inn Lane in April 1763, Anna Maria was destined to the stage, giving private performances of her ‘fine toned’ voice by the time she was ten, and by fourteen performing at the Drury Lane Theatre and earning … Continue reading
Posted in Actor, Churchyard, Royal connection, St Nicholas
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Mr Weiss and his Instrument of Certain Death
John Weiss came to London from Rostock in 1780. His father had been a cutler and served as Master Cutler to the Rostock Guild of Smiths; Weiss took to the manufacture of surgical instruments and in 1787 opened for business … Continue reading
Posted in Churchyard, Doctor, German, St Nicholas
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Corporal Staines
Corporal Staines lived and died in Brighton during the first half of the nineteenth century. A former Marine, he was buried at the foot of another old soldier Phoebe Hessel, but his grave is not marked, and his name doesn’t … Continue reading
Posted in Churchyard, Missing Monuments, Naval, St Nicholas
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Historical disorder
St Nicholas gardens have always been rough around the edges. One of the first entries in the Parks and Gardens minute book in 1951, following the reopening of the churchyard after the clearance, was about disorderly youngsters causing a nuisance … Continue reading
Posted in Churchyard, St Nicholas
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The Great Clearances
The growth of the dead will mirror the growth of the living, and as the population of Brighthelmston increased so did the old ground around the church. Expansion peaked in the 19th century, with the northern extension opening in 1825 and the … Continue reading
The Brighton Mortiquarian 