The grave is located in the churchyard of The Minster Church of St Peter ad Vincula in Stoke.
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The headstone of Herbert Stansfield shows many Masonic Symbols. It is referred to as the Freemason's Grave in the Guide to the Grounds, but the grave became known locally as ‘The Devil’s Grave’ due to its misunderstood carved images and the fact that the schoolchildren studying at the Church’s School, St Peter's, mistook the image of Death over a skeleton as the Devil.
According to the church warden children, from the school that was adjacent to the wall around the churchyard, threw stones at the headstone causing damage to part of the stone. The schoolchildren invented a folk tale, which says if you hit the figure of the Devil (Death) with a stone three times and then spin round three times, the Devil would appear!
The inscription on the headstone is surrounded by allegorical figures and emblems of freemasonary, and reads as follows:
'Time and Death shall lie no more.
(depicted below: To the left is the winged Angel of death with the sands of time and a scythe standing on a skeleton - the skeleton seems to be trying to fight off the angel.
To the right are three winged creatures - the faces of each of them has been broken off)
Freemason’s Arms Banner, with the words “FREE MASON’S ARMS”
("Free Masons Arms" depicts - the beehive, symbolic of systematized industry and meaning that what one may not be able to accomplish alone may be easily performed when all work together at one task.
One of Masonic principal symbols is the square and compasses, tools of the trade, so arranged as to form a quadrilateral. The square is sometimes said to represent matter, and the compasses spirit or mind. The compass is an ancient symbol of spirituality and spiritual creativity. Some medieval paintings show God creating the Universe with compasses.)
"To the Memory of
HERBERT STANDSFIELD Late of Middlewich
who died January 17th 1799 Aged 64 Years"
At the bottom of the headstone is the following Memento Mori Poem,
"Time was I stood as thou dost now
To view the Dead as thou dost me
In time thou'l lie as low as I
And others stand and look on thee"
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"A little research tells us that Herbert Stansfield was indeed from Middlewich in Cheshire, because he is recorded as living there on the 1785 Land Tax Record as the occupier of a property owned by a Joseph Wilkinson, paying 2 shillings and 5 ¼ pence in tax.
We also find when looking at the Marriage Licences and Bonds for Cheshire, that he applied for a licence to marry a Mary Jackson, also of Middlewich on the 4th of May 1791, and both of them were Widowers. The record also tells us that they were to be married in the Parish Church of Middlewich, St Michael’s & All Angels, recording both their ages as ‘fifty’, and not surprisingly, that he could read and write, because he had signed his own name.
Surprisingly, the Marriage Licence also lists his occupation as a ‘Mason’, which means that he was not only a Freemason, but rather than being a speculative freemason, he was also an operative stonemason. This means that with all likelihood he designed and carved his own gravestone, so when we view his grave and touch this stone, our hands are also touching that same surface which he had lovingly carved with his own hand, using the same tools which all freemasons are familiar with, albeit in the majority as allegorical symbols, rather than being actual stonemasons by profession as well. However the date of his death and his age must have been added by someone else, after his demise.
I wonder if those same schoolchildren or even interested folk really realised that the person in slumber below had also carved his own deathly epitaph.
Herbert Stansfield is both a less common first name and surname, so therefore it is quite easy to track him down in historical records. Looking further afield in the West Riding’s of Yorkshire, we find him again, this time he marries on the 26th of April 1761 at St John’s Church in Halifax. His first wife was named Mary Wilson, which means the lady he married in Middlewich; Mary Jackson was his second wife.
If we now look for his birth, we find that he was baptised in Halifax on the 25th July 1736, and that his father was also called Herbert Stansfield, and that his father was also a (stone) Mason.
If we look at his age on the gravestone, recorded as 64, and look at the baptism of 25th July 1736 and his death date on the stone of 17th of January 1799, his actual age at death would have been 63 years old. Whoever carved the date of his death and age must have made a slight error.
If we now look for his father’s marriage, we find that his father married an Ann Bradley in Halifax on the 19th of October 1730.
If we look at burial records, we find that his father was buried in Halifax on the 24th of November 1773, and was baptised, also in Halifax, on the 27th of September 1709, with his father being recorded as Henry Stansfield, the grandfather of the grave’s occupant.
We also find a reference to Herbert Stansfield in Chapter 6: Building the Canal, in ‘The Thames & Severn Canal, Humphrey Household, 2009’, where we are told that he was a gang leader of a one of many teams building the canal, along with fellow (stone) masons: “John Nock, Edward Edge, Thomas Cook, John Holland, and James Jackson.”
A Website dedicated to the Cotswold Canals (https://www.wottonheritage.com/cotswold-canals-griffin-mill-lock-a10), details that “The Red Lion lock in Chalford further up the valley bears the date 4 December 1784, and the name of the mason, Herbert Stansfield”. This means that Herbert Stansfield must have been in charge of the building of this lock, and had carved his name with his skilled hand to record his hard work for posterity.
A genealogical website gives us Herbert’s family tree, the details of which are as follows, (http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~calderdalecompanion/mms39.html):- "
SOURCE: The Devil’s Grave, A Masonic Epitaph
by Charles E. S. Fairey, 2015 : (
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