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To enter some churchyards, you have to pass under a small shelter. Often they incorporate a stone platform and seats. They’re known as lychgates, and traditionally, bodies were kept here before burial. Its name comes from the Old English word for a corpse - 'lic'.
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Under a lychgate, a shrouded corpse and its pallbearers would be sheltered before burial. The 1549 Prayer Book ordered the priest to meet the corpse at the churchyard entrance; however, some lychgates existed before this date.
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Once the cleric had met the deceased and the burial attendants at the gate, they could proceed into the church.
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Lychgates are more common in England than Wales, but we have two interesting examples in North Wales. The lychgate at Penmorfa was built in 1698 by Mrs A M Jones of Parciau, while that at Ynyscynhaearn was erected in the 1700s and has slate headstones mounted on the inside.
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One of our volunteers at Temple Corsley, Wiltshire made a model of the 19th-century lychgate that leads into their church. A skilled model-maker, David used an old, decayed timber element from the lychgate to make this model.
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