Tomb for Euphemia Oldrid, Rigsby

In 1865, Sir George Gilbert Scott designed a tomb for his sister Euphemia Oldrid to be placed in St James's churchyard. It is a polished red granite bevelled cross on a grey polished bevelled plinth tapering towards the base of the cross, both placed on a large Yorkstone rectangular slab covering a brick vault. Scott’s oldest sister, Euphemia, the wife of John Henry Oldrid who had just become the vicar of Alford, was ‘suffering from a disease which they say must be fatal and is of the most painful nature!’ It seems that she had received a blow in the chest at the 1862 Exhibition, which, so he said, turned to cancer and after years of agony, died on 8 February 1865, twelve days after Scott’s son, Albert Henry, had suddenly died. This was a heavy personal blow for Scott who had also lost his younger sister, Mary Jane, the previous year.

Scott’s Recollections, II 327.Scott, T. (ed.) ‘The Chronicles of Eight Men’ (unpublished family history, n.d. circa 1992, Aylesbury Local Studies Collection). pp. 85-6.