To think there is a grave in my garden?

[IsItATomb]

NC for this as the pics are outing.

Moved in to my house in April and it has what I thought is a really ugly raised bed in the garden. Now the summer has arrived I've realised it gets no sunshine on it at all so isn't a raised bed after all.

DD and I were pottering our there this afternoon and we came across this plaque on the raised bed.

WTF.

Is it a coincidence or is it a grave?!

Oh how sad.
If they don’t want it then I think moving it to a tree would be fitting.

Ah, at least you have a resolution. How sad. Definitely see if there are any family who would like the plaque or, if there aren't, leave it there and consider yourself an arms-length guardian/preserver of somebody's precious family history.

Aww that's so sad 😞

Although I hope you find out who Harold is

Can I make a suggestion ? Bluebells are lovely and would come back each year ? You could plant some bulbs I did this for my first baby who I lost

Think the bluebells sound very fitting...

Or Rosemary, for remembrance?

If it is for a baby born at home, then the chance of it being a grave is surely increased.. I don't think I could dig there tbh.

Ask for a community police officer to call round and see what they think? Best to ask!

Can you pop into your clocal library and use their PC to look up info on www.ancestry.co.uk? If she was very old then the son was probably born years ago then you could just use www.freebmd.org.uk so you could just use your own phone/PC to look them up.

I assume you know name of the deceased lady who used to live at your address? You will probably need her maiden name to find children born to her.

Look up marriages using her married surname for groom and her forename(s) for Bride's name. For those marriages in your registration, look up births to father's surname and mother's maiden surname. For male names look up to see if any died.

What a sad story. Hope it is a memorial rather than a grave. One of my neighbours actually did find 3 skeletons in their garden!

I think the registering of stillbirths came in around the 1930s, so this family's son is likely to have been registered - but this isn't the same as a birth or death certificate.
I think info from the neighbour is the only way to get more knowledge. People do dig up old graves - where I live road works exposed a lot of ancient skeletons from nearby churchyards - but I wouldn't want to be the one doing it. And I would want to dispose of the remains appropriately. However chances are still high it is a memorial with none of these concerns.

Aww how sad, lovely idea of planting a tree or something, totally agree with I hope they can look down and see that the house is now the family home that they dreamed of.

Aww how sad, lovely idea of planting a tree or something, totally agree with I hope they can look down and see that the house is now the family home that they dreamed of. flowers

But there are some trees there, and OP wants to cut them because they are in the way of her child's new playground.

So If do indeed look down I wonder what they will think.

The trees I'm having chopped down aren't my trees, they belong to next door and they massively hang over my garden.

I have a cherry tree in the middle of my grass which I'll be keeping and I'll put the plaque there if the family don't want it

Oh gosh, this is sad! I would see if you can find out if ashes are buried there if indeed there is a stillborn son. I have my Mum in the garden but in a large planter so that she can come with me when I move eventually. I think it would be lovely to put the plaque somewhere if it can't be returned to the previous owner. What a fascinating story OP

Probably just where they planted a little bed to remember him by.
Or there’s a body under there 😱

Memorial Garden by the look of it, reading the plaque could qell be the old womans son, may have been his veg garden wheb he was alive as resembles a raised veg olot or leek trench. Sounds like he passed first n she has turned it inti a memorial garden, qhich isnt surprising if he was a keen gardener. But the teews have i. Turn ivwr shadowed it later and shw has becomw zo old to maintain it then has passed.

I think it's a memorial garden.

If it looks like a grave, reads like a grave and seems like a grave, it probably is.
Call the police, it may be that you have solved a series of grisly murders for which there may be a massive reward, enabling you to buy a bigger and better house that gets the sun all over the garden.

That place was very dear to someone at one time, it’s not creepy. It was a place to remember a loved one. Plant some flowers and make it special again, even though you don’t know who the dear son was.

I don't think you should just dig it up. Would it be an exhumation and need permission?

I agree it might be a memorial garden but if this lady was 95 she would have been in her twenties round about the 1940s - 50s.
Home births were still the norm then and I don't think stillborn babies were accorded the same respect they are now so the parents might have chosen to bury him in their garden.

I plan on being buried in my garden - it's in my will, and up the wife and kids exactly where, and how they get the JCB in to dig the hole.

Thanks for the link.