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Daughters of Sir Adrian Scrope on Memorial

Sir Adrian Scrope (1563-1623) married Ursula Clifton and had 9 children.
On the tomb of mottled alabaster is an effigy, in limestone, of a partially recumbent knight in full armour, except that his gauntlets lie beside him with his sword. His helmet is placed behind his left shoulder. Instead of lying at full length in the usual form, this effigy shows the knight half raised on his elbow, giving the effect of his apparently listening to the lesson, the lectern being nearby. Sadly he is badly worn although traces of the original blue of his sash remain.
The monument is almost certainly the work of Epiphanius Evesham 1570-1633 a major English sculptor.
On the front of the base of the tomb are two panels containing figures of his nine children. The left hand panel shows six adult male figures. The two figures kneeling are shown bearing swords, the other four are shown standing and they are in normal clothing of the time. On the left of this panel immediately below the knee of the left-hand figure who is at prayer, there is an infant in swaddling clothes. Over them is a scroll with the inscription “Similis in prole resurgo” which translates as “I am born again in my offspring”.
The right panel bears representations of the two adult daughters, Elizabeth and Jane, kneeling at prayer. In the lower right of the panel is the face of what appears to be a small child and above them on a scroll is the inscription “Pares et impares” which translates to “equal and not equal”.
Mounted on the church wall at the feet of the effigy is the Scrope crest – a coronet surmounted by a plume of five ostrich feathers. The escutcheon is supported with two Cornish choughs.
On the wall above the tomb is a black mural tablet on which is the following :-
“The thrice noble Sir Adrian Scrope, Knight
Deceased the 10th December 1623
Tombes are but dumbe lay-bookes, they onely keepe
Their names alive, who in there wombs doe sleepe
But who would pen the vertues of this Knight
A story not an epitaph, must write”.

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