biggs682
Itching to get back on my bike's
- Location
- Northamptonshire
A Northampton racecourse old tram stop
The proper name for a covered entrance to church or graveyard grounds is a lychgate, also spelled lichgate or corpse gate. These structures provided shelter for the funeral party and the corpse as they awaited the priest to begin the burial service, acting as a liminal space between the secular and consecrated grounds of the churchyard.
Properly speaking, the name applies only to those that were equipped with a coffin rest when constructed.
The vast majority are Victorian or later & are constructed in imitation of the form rather than the purpose. Good places for a rainy day picnic if equipped with benches.
What are they called?
Covered gates but no one would quibble with them being called lych gates anymore than they would with Georgian & Victorian mansions being called such & such Castle
Do you have a reference for a 'true' lynchgate necessarily having a permanent coffin rest? After your post I've been looking more deeply and cannot see this as a requirement/definition, so interested to research further.
The church in ravenstone is the nicest one I have found locally and it has a bench seat both sides so I suppose you could rest a coffin on them?