Tombstone for a Gardener: Remembering Edward Ward of Troston Hall

"In a secluded, unpretending graveyard, there is an epitaph to Edward Ward, aged 92, who died in 1804, who, it appears, was gardener at Troston Hall for upwards of seventy years..."

September 5, 1882

On this day, The Ipswich Journal, out of Suffolk, England, included this little snippet in an article reviewing some of the oldest tombstones in Suffolk.

In [a] secluded, unpretending graveyard, there [is an] epitaph to Edward Ward, aged 92, who died October 31, 1804, who, it appears, was gardener at Troston Hall for nearly seventy years:

Thus, thy long Round of Years and Toils fullfill'd,
Rest,
Good Old Man: — no more to fear or hope
From the returning Seasons & their change,
Till the Great Spring arrive; & call thee forth
To Bloom, we trust, & Fruits, on earth unknown.

 

The above forcibly illustrates the long servitude prevailing in Suffolk above a century ago, for it was reckoned that the family of Wards had been employed by the same family for 200 years.


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Troston Hall
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