Tomb of Fasham Nairn in West Hoathly churchyard - who is buried in it?

[clontarf]

Captain Fasham Nairn (1731-1810) was buried at West Hoathly on 3 Nov 1810.

In his will he requests that "my body be interred under the Tomb which I some years ago caused to be erected for a deceased Friend in the South East corner of West Hoathly Church Yard".   In St Margaret's church West Hoathly there is plaque that states that the remains of a 5 week old infant Fasham Nairn are interred "in a vault near this place".    The young Fasham is the great great nephew of the elder.  I presume the vault is the same as the tomb.

I suspect the deceased Friend may have been the common law Indian wife of Capt Nairn who made several voyages to Madras and Bengal as the captain of East India Company ships.

I have a photo of the plaque, but not of the tomb.

The questions I have are:

Is there any way I can discover when the tomb was built?
Who has buried in it?

[sillgen]

Have you looked at the parish registers for West Hoathly?  The burial entries may give some information.
Contacting the Priest House there may be useful too as they may have history of those times.
http://sussexpast.co.uk/properties-to-discover/the-priest-house

[hepburn]

There's this also




http://www.rootschat.com/links/0t7t/

[clontarf]

Thank you to sillgen and hepburn.

I did check the St Margaret's website.  It does have a list of burials, but generally only says "person X buried on date Y" sometimes with an age.  I looked at a very dim microfilm of the parish register about 15 years ago, which has the same sort of sparse information.  Fasham Nairn left money in his will to the clerk and sexton of the parish for the upkeep and regular repainting of the tomb.  Is it likely there would be any parish accounts surviving that would record such payments?

An interesting sidelight - Fasham leaves a legacy to his cousin Charles Nairn Hastie whose father was HEPBURN Hastie.  Any connection?

[hepburn]

You do have some wonderful names in your family.Sorry,no connection.

[hepburn]

You'd think with a tomb there would be no problem finding it..

[clontarf]

My brother thought he located the tomb many years ago and took a photo - which I have now mislaid.  He is no longer in the area so cant go back and check for me.  He said it appeared not to have any inscriptions on it, which is strange since it has at least three people in it - the deceased Friend, Capt Fasham Nairn and the infant Fasham Nairn.

It should be near the yew tree that appears on the map on the St Margaret's web site

[hepburn]

Do you think they've moved it or it collapsed or something?

[Liz_in_Sussex]

   Hi clontarf,

Would you like me to have a prowl around West Hoathly churchyard?  Many of my ancestors are buried there (I have them documented back to the 1400's) and for some years they lived in what is now known as the Priest House - I still live in the area.

I could take some new photos for you?

Liz

PS I am replying to your other thread too.