Many buried ...

You only have to look at the church from the East (from by the Vicarage Schoolroom in Queen Street) and see how much higher the churchyard is than the road to realise how many burials have taken place there over the centuries.

... but few burials are now marked

However, the churchyard has been closed to burials for many years and as the ariel view of the church and churchyard below makes clear there are very few remaining gravestones in the churchyard. Added to this, most of those that do exist have no legible inscription - in fact they are mostly so worn it's not even possible to see that they once had an inscription!

Who were they?

If you are local you may have wondered about the people commemorated by the stones as you walk past them. Or maybe you are reading this page because your ancestors came from Gillingham.

What the map shows

Whatever the reason for your interest, you can use the Google map below to see pictures of the stones and, where the information is available, to read about those in whose memory they were erected (click on one of the blue placemarks to see information about a gravestone).

work is still in progress on recording the inscriptions, researching a little about the families and adding pictures

Some of the stones are only partially legible; where text is missing or incomplete it is indicated by square brackets []; a question mark indicates uncertainty, but in some many it has been possible to check unclear dates, names and ages against the burial registers. For some families census returns have been looked at to get a picture of who the people were commemorate by these stones.

Hints on using this Google map

If you are looking for a particular family stone you may find it useful to view the map within a Google maps page, where you will get a clickable key at the side.

If opening the information for a stone causes the map to move, you can "drag" it back. (If you're not clear about this refreshing the page will also put the map back to show the whole Churchyard).

If a placemark you wish to click on is obscured by an open balloon about another grave, click the X in the top right corner of the open balloon to close it.

There is an area north of the chancel where ashes are interred (see the above view - the small stones give a speckled appearance).