PHOTO - beautiful Welsh Church

Hi Gang;
This is Nevern Church about 800 years old. Still holds services on Sundays. The gravestones make interesting reading, tracing the families who lived here for many generations. Most died quite young, but even 200 years ago some made it into their 70's.
Note the tower is quite low, typical Welsh style. Whereas in the southern part of Pembrokeshire which was controlled by the English landowners, the church towers are much taller to act as look outs incase the Welsh attacked. David

Going through the cemetery for a class one day (can't even remember why or whatfor the class was!) I was struck by the large, large number of 70/80/90 years olds and IIRC a couple centerians buried there from among the earliest settlers -- we're talking people who died in say 1750 at the age of 90. Their kids where living into their 70s it seemed by the stones, but the next generation saw a lot only living to 40/50/60.

Reading since then, that wasn't unusual among the isolated towns in interior New England -- the settlers got plenty of exercise from their daily activities and the towns were isolated from communicable diseases by long travel distances over poor roads or just trails back to the port cities.

After the middle of the 18th century as roads improved and new towns sprung up between these older, isolated "frontier" communities the life span dropped dramatically as diseases could now travel quickly from the port cities inland.

Lovely photo.

Mummsy (originally from Dorset) suggests to me that the English style of higher tower is explained by their greater aspiration to heaven.

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mono