GIFFARD CHAPEL, ST HIERITHA'S CHURCH
CHITTLEHAMPTON, DEVON
In 1625 Colonel John Giffard (1602-1665) erected a memorial monument in memory of his grandfather John Giffard (1552-1622) and his forefathers. The monument's plaque, inscribed in Latin, reads as follows in translation:
Here lies John Giffard, esquire, a man of outstanding piety, probity, prudence and providence who from Honora his wife, from the family of Erle, received a most plentiful progeny. However with Arthur his firstborn having died with his father still living, he substituted for him as his heir John the son of Arthur. Thus with his family splendidly and successfully settled, with his sons and with the sons of his sons sufficiently provided for and with John his heir having been allied in marriage to the most select Joan from the illustrious stock of Wyndham of Somerset, already a seventy-year-old, he departed from the living. With his urn having been touched (2 Kings 13:21), those famous names once upon a time dead seemed as if to have risen up again: Roger Giffard, knight, sprung from the family of Halsbury, who had as his wife Margaret the daughter and heiress of John Cobleigh of Brightleigh; John Giffard esquire, who Mary was the wife, the daughter of Richard Grenville, knight; and of the greatest hope Arthur Giffard who received for his wife Agnes, the daughter of Thomas Leigh, esquire. John Giffard, his most sorrowful grandson, placed here this monument, a symbol of most pious observance.
[image copyright: Jane Sercombe Lewis]