St Peter's Church,Cambridge; Memorial Stones

These finely decorated memorial stones marked the passing of a generation of the Smith family, notably Thomas Smith esquire, who served Cambridge as a Justice of the Peace and aldermen from 1733 - 1754. These memorials are the best-preserved examples from the church, with others lost in the yard, reused in the pathway or placed against the wall of the church. The exception to this is a small 17th-century heart shaped gravestone and 19th-century chest tomb in the yard. St Peter’s Church is thought to have been built in the 12th-century, possibly with Anglo-Saxon origins. Most of the church seen today is Georgian and was heavily reconstructed in 1781 when the Norman nave and chancel were demolished and rebuilt following a long period of ruin. The Georgian reconstruction reused much of the original material, including Roman tiles and bricks that had been robbed from the ruins of Roman Cambridge, including the once-adjacent 4th-century town wall.