What is recorded here

Gowran’s tomb buries a tonsured knight beneath a limestone cross, his head sunk into false relief while leaves climb the shaft toward a worn fleur-de-lys. The slab lies prostrate in the southeast angle of the newer church, saved from the old chancel and still angular enough to suggest a man rather than a legend. Its chamfered edges catch light like a knife laid flat, reminding the room that death was once carved, not merely recorded.

Lying prostrate in the SE angle of a 19th-century C of I church which was built on the former chancel of the 13th-century church of St Mary’s (KK020-060006-) in Gowran. A tapering limestone head-slab of a knight (L 1.69m; overall Wth at base 0.44m; T 0.28m) whose head is within a hollow in false relief and the cross is carved in raised relief. The edges of the slab are chamfered (Wth 0.09m). The man appears to be an ecclesiastic as he seems to have a tonsure, with a fringe of hair on either side of rather pronounced ears (Hunt 1974, vol. 1, 167-8). The cross-head is very worn. There are leaves springing from above the mid-point of the cross-shaft, which itself terminates with a fleur-de-lys. Hunt dates the slab to the 13th century (ibid.). Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 14 August 2019

Effigial tomb, medieval period (13th–19th century). The tomb is significant as a reused funerary monument, originally part of the chancel of a 13th-century church, later incorporated into a 19th-century church building, with the effigy representing a knight and reflecting medieval funerary art and ecclesiastical continuity.

The monument record does not grant public access. Check the route and ask the landowner before entering private land.