Search for Britain's most remarkable epitaph

The Telegraph ^ | 7/25/2007 | Caroline Davies

[SteveMcKing]

I’d rather not be remembered for something that reads like a bumper sticker.

[dfwgator]

“He died peacefully in his sleep, unlike the screaming passengers in his car.”

[lawgirl]

Oh this is really timely for me- I was just thinking about how we need this kind of project in America— I was at Lexington Cemetary in Lexington KY this weekend and came upon a grave from the 1850s telling about a boy that had died trying to save his little playmate— he was aged 9 years, 9 months. Totally fascinating.

[Old Sarge]

[grey_whiskers]

My PC at home has the link...

Epitaph on a willing girl:

Here lies entombed
Beneath these bricks
the scabbard of
ten thousand p***ks

Cheers!

[operation clinton cleanup]

Sir John Strange; Here lies an honest lawyer, And that is Strange.
— Tombstone in England

[Graybeard58]

and don't want to mow around higgledy, piggledy gravestones

Exactly the kind of stone I want!

[Nea Wood]

"I you see as you pass by, As you are so once was I, As I am so must you be, Therefore prepare to follow me."

To which someone allegedly wrote, "To follow you I'll not consent, until I know which way you went!"

[DeaconBenjamin]

Stop, my friend, as you pass by
For as you are now, so once was I
And as I am now, you soon will be
So prepare, my friend, to follow me

Scribbled underneath

To follow you I'm not content
'Til I'm quite sure which way you went

[Kirkwood]

“People want nice tidy churchyards and don’t want to mow around higgledy, piggledy gravestones ...”

Haven’t they heard of a weedeater? Or maybe a goat?

[LexBaird]

William Shakespeare’s:
GOOD FREND FOR JESUS SAKE FORBEARE TO
DIGG THE DUST ENCLOASED HEARE.
BLEST BE YE MAN YT SPARES THES STONES AND
CURST BE HE YT MOVES MY BONES

[fish hawk]

REPUIEM by Robert Louis Stevenson Under a wide and starry sky Dig the grave and let me lie: Glad did I live and gladly die, And I lay me down with a will. This be the verse you grave for me: Here he lies where he long’d to be; Home is the sailor, home from the sea, And the hunter home from the hill.

[LexBaird]

I’d rather not be remembered for something that reads like a bumper sticker.

Sir Christopher Wren, the architect of St.Paul's Cathedral in London, is buried there. His epitaph reads in Latin:

Reader, if you would seek his monument, look around you.

[BigCinBigD]

I want this on mine.

“Ad Astra Per Aspera”

[mozarky2]

My wife and I have some joke tombstones that we put out on Halloween.
One says “Here lies Cecilia, cold as ever”.
The other says “Here lies Frank, stiff at last”.

[SteveMcKing]

Not bad. Perhaps my own inscription should read like my post...

[Oztrich Boy]

"Duirt me leat go raibh me breoite" - Spike Milligan
("I told you I was ill")
Says it all

[maine-iac7]

William Shakespeare’s:

GOOD FREND FOR JESUS SAKE FORBEARE TO

DIGG THE DUST ENCLOASED HEARE.

BLEST BE YE MAN YT SPARES THES STONES AND

CURST BE HE YT MOVES MY BONES

Hmmm - a little sing songy - doesn't have the ring of the writer of "Shakespeare" = One might expect that someone who wrote such tongue in cheek witticisms would have, as his last words - forever - to the world, to have a bit more jocoseness - and a different meter.

Makes me tend to lean more towards the Baconians

...