16. QUAKER BURIAL GROUND

This is a rectangular area planted with evergreen oaks. Its south wall is missing so it may well have extended further. It was given to the Quaker Friends in 1667 by William Hempsterly. It is often referred to as the Peckover Cemetery and, according to Quaker records, almost thirty Peckovers were buried here. However, many other Quakers were also interred including Friends from the surrounding villages even as far away as Holt. The first recorded burial in 1689 was that of James Peckover the infant son of James and Katherine.
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According to Quaker custom virtually all graves were unmarked. At a meeting in 1717 those who had erected memorials were criticised and their removal was ordered. Unlike church burials, there was no recognition of social status and bodies were placed next to the previously interred.

After 1850 simple memorial stones were allowed and many were erected retrospectively. The man most likely to have erected the stones seen here was William Peckover of Wisbech. Joseph, the last Fakenham Peckover, never married and left all his estate to William. Joseph died at the age of 82 in 1836 and is almost certainly the last to be buried here being the last Quaker in Fakenham. The earliest stone is dedicated to Anne Peckover the first wife of an earlier Joseph who himself was buried in 1771.
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The Congregational Church which is now an antiques centre.
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The Quaker burial ground, often referred to as the Peckover cemetery.

There is rather a gruesome account of
one burial that reads:

Mary the wife of Thomas Larder, who was fined 10s, in the said warrant by Christopher Beddingfield, the officers came to strain for it, but seeing little in the house except the bed she lay on, they went away and reported the fact to the said Magistrate. He commanded the Officers to take the bed from under her, though they told him she was more likely to Dye than Live and she did Dye the same night being the first day of the first month in the morning.
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Mary Larder's husband was one that was not called a Quaker; yet according to his Wife's Desire he was willing she be buried in the Friends Burying-Ground, which was accordingly done. But the Savage Cruelty of some acted upon her dead body; ought not to be buried in Oblivion; for upon the 5th day of the same month Thomas Bretland's servant Richard Tendick and one Robert Broome pulled the Dead Corpse out of the Grave (where it ought to have rested) in an inhuman Manner breaking the coffin so as they were forced to tye it together lest the Corps should fall out; and they brought it and set it in the Market place by Edmund Peckover's door, to the great Amazement of many People who were troubled by the sight thereof, she having been some days in the ground.

​This is an Action which would be detested of the sober Heathens; CHRISTIANS! Though how far are they from the Nature of Christianity, that are the Actors of such Tragedies as these, is apparent to all True Christians.

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You now should walk up the unmade-up Ratcliffe Road on the other side of the street with its Congregational Church at the top, now an antiques centre.
The next plaque is on the other side of Norwich Road at the top of Ratcliffe Road.
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