Alford, Chief Inspector of the Bank of New South Wales, and descendant of a well-known English family which included Dean Alford, a distinguished scholar and author, Bishop Alford, of Hong Kong, and Canon Alford, of Bristol Cathedral, who was a chaplain-captain during the war. There is always the third option, if the first two don’t appeal, that the sculptor wasn’t much good at faces which accounts for why the whole family are decked out like sacks of spuds.Gordon Beresford Alford was born at Toowoomba, Queensland, on 18th February, 1885, the son of Mr.
Except if course that the ceiling is rather later – being made from aluminium and being added in 1895. In Thomas Beresford’s case there is also the promise of salvation because there’s a painted ceiling above the tomb showing the Beresford coat of arms and winged angels. If you couldn’t afford a full length alabaster likeness of your loved one in their shroud – or even your own likeness- there was always a shroud brass. The shroud tomb is the model down from the full on skeleton.
As if the fact that the monument wasn’t enough of a reminder of death the so called “trans” of cadaver tombs were designed to remind folk how transient life and its achievements really are. The reason that is often given is that Thomas, who fought at Agincourt, and his wife died in 14 respectively but that the tomb was carved during the Tudor period meaning that no one knew what Thomas and Agnes looked like so the mason was forced to come up with his own solution to the problem of how they might have appeared.Ī more plausible alternative is that the shroud tomb is a cheaper alternative to the cadaver tomb – this was a late fifteenth century fad to have your life like “before” effigy on the top of the tomb and a cadaver “after” effigy directly underneath complete with bones, worms, rigor mortis and a spot of light torment depending on the mason’s preferences. Interesting as that may be it doesn’t explain why Thomas and his wife are chiselled as top knotted bundles. The screen in the church was given by the Beresfords in the aftermath of the Wars of the Roses – presumably in grateful thanks for surviving. Having said that John Beresford managed to get on the wrong side of Henry IV when he refused to go to France. This is perhaps not unexpected as the Beresfords are listed as part of the Lancaster Affinity. The Beresfords provided a troop of horsemen for Henry V and Thomas’s sons took part in the Wars of the Roses fighting on the side of Lancaster. Their tomb tells us quite a bit about the couple – they had sixteen sons and five daughters – all of them in their shrouds, as indeed are Thomas and Agnes. They were buried in St Edmund’s Church, Fenny Bentley opposite their home in Fenny Bentley Old Hall. Thomas Beresford died some ten years after his wife, Agnes.
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