Rare Garland Discovered in Theydon Mount Church

One now forgotten custom was to carry a garland, in the shape of a crown adorned with flowers and paper trimmings, at the funeral of an unmarried girl and to hang it in the church afterwards. This practice can be traced back to the 16th century and must be much older still it probably went into decline in the 17th and 18th centuries, restrained by Puritan reformers and the tidy-minded, but it has not entirely died out in modern times. In 1973, a garland was made for a funeral at Abbots Ann, Hampshire, where forty-nine garlands can be seen in St. Mary’s church.

A survey carried out 20 years ago by Gereth M. Spriggs identified 64 churches which preserve maidens’ garlands. Since then, only one other has been identified, in St. Michael’s church, Theydon Mount, it is one of two which a photograph of 1905 shows to have once hung from the nave roof. Since the other one disintegrated in a cloud of dust some years ago, efforts have been made to preserve the surviving example. It is currently being painstakingly restored at the Conservation Laboratory of the York Archaeological Trust.

The conservation of the garland has shed much light on its construction and history. The wooden frame, now worm-eaten and very fragile, was made of ash. Attached to it are sprigs of box, surprisingly well preserved, though the leaves have now gone brown. They are tied on with string made of hemp. As an evergreen shrub, box has been associated with burial practices since at least Roman times. Most interesting of all has been the analysis of the now very fragmentary paper decorations. Some of these have printed patterns in black or red on a white background, which look as if they date from the later 17th century. As such, they are the best dating evidence for the garland and indicate that it is very much older than previously suspected. Indeed, it is one of the oldest surviving garlands as well as being the only one in East Anglia.

The conservation of the garland has been made possible through the generosity of the Essex Heritage Trust, the Manifold Trust, and Essex County Council.