Headstone for Jean Shaw.

Description Headstone for Jean Shaw.

Collection Papers of Betty Willsher, historian, St Andrews, Scotland

Catalogue Number KB 1326/2

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies SC 803810

Scope and Content Gravestone commemorating Jean Shaw, Old Parish Church and Burial-Ground, Minnigaff, Dumfries & Galloway Two huge leafy scrolls dominate the design of this stone, their shape and form being similar to memorials in Ayrshire. In the centre, a winged figure, now quite weathered, represents Jean's soul ascending to Heaven. Below, the indistinct circular object may have once been a skull, an emblem representing death. While plants and flowers were used as decoration, these may have been used to express a range of ideas about death, mortality and the afterlife. Flowers could symbolise the shortness of life, blooming and then withering away, or be associated with mourning. Alternatively, plants might symbolise regeneration, returning to life after appearing dead throughout winter and could be interpreted as an allegory for the Resurrection or the soul's ascent to Heaven, where life was believed to continue after death. This gravestone commemorates Jean Shaw, wife of a tenant farmer, who died in 1733 aged 37. A transcript of the inscription made in the late 1980s reads: 'HERE LYES THE CORPS/OF JEAN SHAW SPOUSE/TO WILLIAM McCREE IN/CRAIG FEUS WHO DEAP/ARTED THE 3 OF FEBRY/1733 IN THE 37 YEAR/OF HER LIFE'. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

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