The Luigi Olivari shipwreck memorial, St Bees, Cumbria
N 54° 29.638 W 003° 35.652
30U E 461513 N 6038645
In 1879 the "Luigi Olivari" was ship wrecked on rocks and the crew were lost. Here is the marker for their families. There are always shells on the plinth.
Waymark Code: WM9PWM
Location: North West England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 09/16/2010
Views: 2
There are twelve men buried here. Eleven Italian mariners and one English deep-sea pilot called Henry Legg, from Falmouth in Cornwall. The ship had been the sailing barque "Luigi Olivari", taking grain from Philadelphia to Silloth where there was a Quaker flour mill, part of Carr's Milling. The wreck is actually off Braystones, 7 km south of St Bees.
The railway station mistress's son saw a ship's mast light too close inshore one snowy January night. By the time he had alerted his mother she saw nothing, but the next morning bodies were found on the beach and in the rocks. There were fourteen or fifteen crew in all, but only eleven bodies were found in the end.
from Visit Link
Inside the Priory church is an information board explaining what to look for in the churchyard.
And how do the shells come to be on the grave? We don't know. Elderly people in the village today remember the shells from their childhood, but how they came to be there in the first place is totally forgotten.
Links
Irish Diving locations list the Olivari as being off Nethertown.
Streetmap
Nearest postcode CA27 0DR
OSGB NX968121