The Little Church Gravestone

(A father’s tribute to his son)

The Little Church

George Gardner, who made the gravestone, was born in Chelsea, London c1882, the second son of George Gardner and Sarah Jane Jewell. George senior was a stonemason and his son followed in his father’s footsteps. George married his cousin, Nellie Jewell, c1902 in London and by 1912 seven children had been born to them.

George Gardener who made the Little Church Gravestone

George Gardner, a stone mason by trade, left his family in London to fight in France in WW1. He suffered badly from the effects of gas and on returning to England was sent, by the army, to Wistow Hall to convalesce. He was befriended by Lord Cottesloe, who employed him as a clerk. Lord Cottesloe suggested that George should bring his wife and seven children from London to live in Leicestershire and offered to find them accommodation in Newton Harcourt. George accepted the offer, and the family arrived in 1916. On 22 May 1916, six Gardner children were admitted to Newton Harcourt School. The family expanded rapidly and soon outgrew their first home. They moved to two cottages in Long Row, Newton Harcourt, which had been knocked into one. School records for Newton Harcourt School, show that a further eight Gardner children were admitted between 1917 and 1932.

George Gardner with his wife and children

The little church gravestone is for George and Nellie Gardner’s eighth child, Christopher Victor, who was born on 26 August 1916 and died aged 8 on 20 September 1924. There are two accounts of how and why the gravestone came to be made, both supplied by Nellie Louisa, Christopher’s sister. The first is the inscription on the reverse of a photograph of the gravestone, written in 1994, which states: -

"George Gardner made this little church because Chris always used to say when he grew up he’d have his own church (he meant he was going to be a vicar). However, he died at 8 years old because of Scarlet Fever. The next grave to it is my Dad’s. My brother Charles had it made as the first one got broken.- - - "

George Gardner remembered that remark. It prompted him to order a large block of stone and he set to work making a miniature church, some five feet high at the top of the steeple.

He worked on it each day when he got home from his job. A true labour of love, carried out in the backyard of the family cottage in Long Row, Newton Harcourt. When the miniature church was complete, he and his workmate took it to the churchyard on a wheelbarrow and erected it.

Another of George and Nellie’s children is also buried nearby. Florence Elizabeth, who was their youngest child, was tragically killed in an accident on London Road, Leicester when she was knocked off her bicycle by a lorry.

Further research at the Record office, revealed the baptisms of all seven of the Gardner children born in Newton Harcourt and looking in the admissions book of Newton Harcourt School, was found the names of the fourteen children, including of course Christopher and Florence Elizabeth.

George Gardner became an Inspector of Pavements for Leicester City Council and died in the 1940s. But it is for his skill as a stonemason that he will be remembered. He has ensured that the Gardner family will always be thought about, when visitors to Newton Harcourt churchyard gaze at the memorial and wonder why and how Christopher Gardner came to have such a beautiful and unusual gravestone.
Acknowledgements:
This article was written by Liz Adams, a member of the Great Glen U3A Family History Group, with the help, consent and thanks to Paddy Letts and her mother Nellie Louisa Reynolds, nee Gardner, and also the staff of the Leicestershire Record Office.

The Little Church in the graveyard