The Brass Children Tomb
Chest tomb to 3 children, John, Jane and Elizabeth Brass, murdered 1683. A long inscription records the murder by their father's servant, Andrew Mills, and his execution and hanging in chains, ending: 'Reader remember Sleeping we were Slain / And here we sleep till we must rise again / Whoso sheddeth Man's Blood / By Man shall his Blood be shed / Thou shalt do no murder.' The word 'executed' has been scratched out on the stone, supposedly by the culprit's family.Context & sources
Found via a search of Historic England's own listings for the word 'murdered'. On 28 January 1683, three Brass children - Jane (20), John (18), and Elizabeth (11) - were killed with an axe at their family farm near Kirk Merrington while their parents, John and Margaret Brass, were out celebrating Jane's recent engagement. The killer was their father's own 19-year-old farm servant, Andrew Mills, who reportedly claimed to have heard voices commanding him to 'kill them all'. Mills was caught, tried, and executed by hanging in chains on a gibbet near the site of the crime. The chest tomb was restored in 1789 'by subscription', in reality funded by a local figure, George Wood; a separate fragment of stone bearing part of the original inscription survives inside the church itself, alongside the restored outdoor tomb. The tomb closes with the same biblical line (Genesis 9:6, 'Whoso sheddeth Man's Blood by Man shall his Blood be shed') already found on this site's Sailor's Stone entry - evidently a stock phrase for this genre of memorial. Historic England's own source is a 19th-century county history.
- Historic England, list entry 1121438, 'Brass Tomb Approximately 4 Metres South of Chancel...' (full inscription transcribed)
- W. Fordyce, 'The History and Antiquities of the County Palatinate of Durham', Vol. I (1857), p.581 - cited as Historic England's own primary source
Behind a paywall
- W. Fordyce, 'The History and Antiquities of the County Palatinate of Durham', Vol. I (1857), p.581 - likely digitised somewhere given its age and public-domain status, but not located online here.
Needs an in-person visit
- Church of St John the Evangelist, Kirk Merrington - to see both the restored outdoor tomb and the surviving indoor fragment of the original 1683 inscription.
- Town
- Kirk Merrington, Spennymoor
- County
- County Durham
- Country
- England
- Coordinates
- 54.6472, -1.6039
- Year
- 1683
- Condition
- Legible
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