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Monument details
| HER Number: | TQ 77 NE 1076 |
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| Type of record: | Listed Building |
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| Name: | COMPORT AND BAKER TOMBS 5 YARDS TO SOUTH OF CHURCH OF ST JAMES |
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Summary
Grade II listed building. Main construction periods 1800 to 1832
| Grid Reference: | TQ 7563 7593 |
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| Map Sheet: | TQ77NE |
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| Parish: | COOLING, MEDWAY, KENT |
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Monument Types
- SITE (Post Medieval - 1800 AD to 1832 AD)
| Protected Status: | Listed Building (II) 1085769: COMPORT AND BAKER TOMBS 5 YARDS TO SOUTH OF CHURCH OF ST JAMES |
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Full description
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The following text is from the original listed building designation:
COOLING CP TO 77 NE 2/7 Comport and Baker tombs 5 yards to south of Church of St. James.
GV II
Row of ten childrens' body blocks, with four footstones, and one headstone and three larger body blocks. Early C19. Stone. Insribed to children of the Comport and Baker families. Known locally as 'Pip's Graves' as they are generally taken to have been the prototypes for the graves on the first page of Charles Dickens' 'Great Expectations'.
Listing NGR: TQ7636776264 (1)
This feature is recorded in the English Heritage Historic Area Assessment for Cooling Parish. The report states: "Within the churchyard is a group of 13 body stones around a headstone, the grave of the Comport family; this is widely considered to be the grave described in the opening scene of Charles Dickens 'Great Expectations'. After the church was declared redundant, it and the churchyard were vested in the care of what is now The Churches Conservation Trust in 1978". (2)
<1> English Heritage, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest (Map). SKE16160.
<2> historic england, 2014, Hoo Peninsula Outline Historic Area Assessment: Cooling Parish. Research Report 51-2014. (Bibliographic reference). SKE31592.
Sources and further reading
| Cross-ref.
| Source description | | <1> | Map: English Heritage. List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest. |
| <2> | Bibliographic reference: historic england. 2014. Hoo Peninsula Outline Historic Area Assessment: Cooling Parish. Research Report 51-2014.. |
