On our travels at the beginning of May we came across St Petroc’s Parish Church of Lydford, Devon.
It is a Norman church but is founded on an earlier settlement. A small timber church probably stood on the site, built about 650AD. It was dedicated in honour of St. Petroc, a 6th century Celtic missionary who came from Wales (via Ireland) and brought the Gospel to many parts of Devon and Cornwall.
The really interesting thing we found was
The Watchmaker’s Tomb (top stone is now inside the church to prevent further damage from the weather) it has a unique epitaph describing George Routleigh as if he were a clock himself, we thought it was wonderful.
I took several photos of the the writing & have transcribed it myself, hope its accurate…
Here lies in horizontal position
The Outsize case of
GEORGE ROUTLEIGH Watchmaker
Whose abilities in that line were an honor
To his profession
Integrity was the mainspring
And prudence the regulator
Of all the actions of his life
Human generous and liberal
His hand never stopped
Till he had relieved distress
So much regulated were his motions
That he never went wrong
Except when set agoing
By people
Who did not know his key
Even then he was easily
Set right again
He had the art of disposing his time
So well
That his hours glided away
In one continual round
Of pleasure and delight
Till an unlucky minute put a period to
His existence.
He departed this life
Nov 11? 1802
Aged 57
Wound up
In hopes of being taken in hand
By his Maker
And of being thoroughly cleaned repaired
And set going
In the world to come.
This is the replacement stone on his tomb, which is just outside the Church door, says..George Routleigh 1745 – 1802
Till next time then………………………………………………………
lynnswaffles.com 
Amazing inscription. These days you are only allowed a certain number of letters on the gravestone so goodness knows how much that would have cost!
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Hadn't thought of that Anne, bet it took who ever done it a good few hours too
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as a watch collector I would love one of his !
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I bet! It was a very beautiful inscription & we wondered if he had written it himself 😊
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George Routleigh Watchmaker
To Lynn Heiden
Hi Lynn,
I came across George Routleigh’s wonderful epitaph by chance today when reading an anthology of poetry called ‘Voices’, published in 1968 by Penguin Education.
Looking for further background information, I did a google search and found George Routleigh The Watchmaker as an entry in 2013 on your own website lynnswaffles.com.
What a wonderful resource you have created there.
One or two little details that are different in the version I read in my anthology.
Line 2/3 the outside case of
George Routleigh, Watchmaker ;
I think ‘outside case’ refers to his bodily remains, i.e. his carcass, as opposed to his living being – so probably not ‘Outsized’)
Also, all of the watch references in the version I read have capital first letters – Mainspring, Regulator, Hand, Key, Maker – presumably to draw our attention to the metaphor of the parallels.
The anthology states…
“He departed this life Nov. 14, 1802”
… not Nov 11.
I am conscious that my anthology presents me with ‘secondhand’ provenance whereas your research is firsthand. However, the lettering on the tomb would probably been a bit clearer around 1968 when the anthology was compiled/published compared to 2013 by which time another 45 years would have caused even more deterioration.
I hope my observations don’t make me seem too nerdy or OCD, I just thought that you might want to have the above input in case you were unable to read certain parts of the weather damaged inscription.
Kind regards,
Adrian Lyndsay
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Hi Adrian.
Thanks so much for contacting me & any corrections or added information is always very welcome, so don’t worry on that score! I have a busy week but will try & add on in a few days. Kind Regards Lynn
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