Maplebeck St Radegund


The main entrance to the churchyard is accessed across the village green through a small wooden gate. The churchyard contains many mature trees including a large yew tree which, because of its considerable girth, is thought to be between 700 and 1,000 years old and the oldest in Nottinghamshire. After the yew suffered storm damage in 2001, it was heavily pruned. The trees on the western boundary of the churchyard, which included a tulip tree, were considered dangerous and were cut down in 2006-7.

The churchyard is roughly rectangular and, with the exception of the western side, it is several feet above the adjacent land. A drystone retaining wall runs along the southern side of the churchyard forming the boundary between the churchyard, private land and the village green. In the northern corner there is a small entrance from Church Lane under a second yew tree and in the western part of the churchyard a low stone wall marks the boundary with ground of the former rectory and in one corner there is a small gate leading to the rectory.

A stone path leads from the gate on the village green to the church porch and some of the funds for the path were donated in memory of Richard Howell who died in 1999. On either side of the stone path the land rises up steeply and the grave stones of 18th and 19th century farmers and their families can be found. At the western end of the churchyard there are a number of gravestones and the table tomb of James Couzin although the date of this obscured.

Most of the gravestones in the eastern part of the churchyard date from the twentieth century but there is a row of six gravestones dating from the 18th century just in front of the eastern end of the church. All of the inscriptions of these are now obscure except one, that of William Whitton. In the south-western corner of the churchyard the gravestone of the Reverend William Parson Turton who died in 1896 can be found. Turton was vicar of Maplebeck for 47 years and the money left in his will financed the repairs to the church.