Maidens' garlands in Holy Trinity church, Ashford in the Water.
"A maiden's garland, also known as a virgin's crown, crants or crantsey, is a crown-shaped garland used as a funeral memento for, usually female, virgins. They are generally made of paper flowers, rosettes and ribbons fixed to a wooden frame. Many are also adorned with white paper gloves, and may be inscribed with verses of poetry and the name of the deceased. The garlands are carried before, or on, the coffin during the funeral procession and afterwards displayed in the church. W. R. Bullen, writing in The Tablet in 1926, reports that the "practice of carrying garlands at a maiden's funeral was common in England, Wales and Scotland before the Reformation and after it for two hundred years or more, but the custom has now almost entirely fallen into disuse."
The oldest surviving garland was made in 1680 and is hung in the Priests' room at St Mary's Church Beverley, Yorkshire. The largest collection of garlands (43, ranging between 1740 and 1973) is held at the parish church of St Mary the Virgin, Abbots Ann, Hampshire, and the most recent example was made in 1995 at Holy Trinity Church, Ashford-in-the-Water, Derbyshire."
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"The church of Holy Trinity, Ashford-in-the-Water, is well known for being one of the few places where the now rare relics known as “maidens’ garlands” have survived, and one of even fewer where they are on permanent public display.
They are also known as virgins’ crants, as referred to in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, when the priest objects to Ophelia, suspected of having taken her own life, being nevertheless “allow’d her virgin crants, her maiden strewments”.
Dr Thomas Nadauld Brushfield, one of the chroniclers of Ashford’s history, explains their use, and how they were constructed, in an article he wrote in 1899:
“It was formerly the custom in many English counties, and one which extended into the present century, on the occasion of the death of an unmarried woman who had led a pure and blameless life, for her friends and neighbours to construct in her honour a light framework, nearly always of wood, and decorated with flowers (real and artificial), ribbons and paper ornaments, several emblematical articles being suspended in the interior. This was generally termed a funeral garland, and was borne with much ceremony before her coffin on its way to the place of interment; and at the conclusion of the burial service, was hung up in a conspicuous position in the church.”The “emblematical articles” that he refers to would typically have been a handkerchief; a paper or kid glove; or a collar. On these would be written the name and date of death of the maiden and, on occasion, some lines of poetry.
One reason why so few maidens’ garlands have survived is that they are extremely fragile and subject to decay, and their preservation has depended largely on the care bestowed on them by successive incumbents.
We learn from Dr Brushfield that seven were known to exist at Ashford “within living memory”. The five that remained by the time of the church’s 1868-1870 restoration were scrupulously preserved by Revd John Reddaway Luxmoore (1829-1917), who was the parish priest here for 52 years.
Revd JR Luxmoore’s son, John Stonhouse Luxmoore, recorded that, in 1891, the frame of one garland “was worm-eaten to such an extent that it was practically of wafer-thin thickness only, filled with dust”. In this particular case, it was necessary to construct a new framework. In 1899, the garlands benefitted from further minor restoration.
Despite the care lavished upon them, one fell to the ground in 1936, and was damaged beyond repair.
The four ancient garlands that currently remain were expertly cleaned and conserved in 1987, and then resuspended inside protective transparent covers, under the aegis of Ven Gerald Phizackerley."
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