Miss Frances Musgrave

MISS FRANCES MUSGRAVE

Miss Frances Musgrave, the daughter of Canon Musgrave, who lived at Oliver’s, reached the age of 100 and a half and received her 100th birthday telegram from the Queen. A memorial garden was created for her next to Oliver’s, before the pond was made, that is why, two seats face the church and not the view of the pond.
She kept a record book of the ‘Names of those buried in Hascombe Church Yard’ that goes back to 1670. There are names from past history; Coverts, Rowcliffe, Godman, Stilwell, Oliver and information as to trades;
Gardener, shepherd, keeper, butler, blacksmith, mole catcher, chauffeur. How some died is recorded ‘accidentally shot in harvest field’, ‘drowned’, ‘kicked by horse’, fell off hay wagon’, ‘fell down belfry steps’.
In 1893 new ground was added to the churchyard on the west. There’s mention of a memorial stone being smashed by a falling elm tree during a gale in January 1930.
In 1941 the body of Erich Schlect, a German airman, was buried in the new churchyard, but removed after the War. Phyllis Reed still recalls the frightening moment of discovering the body on her postal round to the Nore.
This book is now part of the Hascombe Archives, it stops in 1964 but family names of those still living in the Village bring back memories: Briggs, Stenning, Hawkins, Porter and Pearl.
May all Rest in Peace. T.H.B.