The joint grave of Catherine and Philip Philp stands in Altarnun churchyard, a typical nineteenth‑century slate headstone marking the resting place of a Bowithick farming couple whose lives can be traced clearly through parish registers and census returns. The stone is notable for its unusually long inscription — a personal verse that hints at a close marriage and the shock of an unexpected death.
Philip Philp was born around 1790. On 18 October 1827 he married Catharine Burnard at Altarnun. By 1841 the couple were living at Bowithick, where Philip is recorded as a farmer, aged 45, with Catherine (35) and their children Richard, Betsy, Mary and Amelia. The 1851 census shows a more detailed picture: Philip, now 61, farming 75 acres and employing a labourer; Catherine aged 50; their son Richard working on the farm; and their daughter Amelia still at home. The household also included a young Burnard relative, a farm servant and a house servant — a typical mixed farm on the northern edge of Bodmin Moor.
Philip died in 1859, described as a yeoman. Probate was granted on 13 August 1859 to his son Richard, confirming the continuity of the family’s holding at Bowithick. Catherine’s death is not detailed in the surviving material, but the joint grave shows that she was buried with her husband and that the family chose to commemorate them together.
The headstone carries a long inscription — uncommon for Altarnun — which reads:
When death was sent from God above,
So suddenly to part our love,
No friends nor yet physicians art,
Could then prevent his fatal dart,
In love we liv'd in peace I dy'd,
My life desir'd but God deny'd,
If love or care could death prevent,
My days would not so soon be spent.
It is a rare example of a local slate stone carrying a full personal verse rather than the usual biblical text or brief epitaph. The lines suggest a sudden death, a close marriage and a family who wished to record something more than the bare facts of name and date. As with many Altarnun stones, the inscription is direct, unembellished and rooted in the language of the time.
The Philp grave is one of many in St Nonna’s churchyard that tie the parish’s farming families to specific places on the moor. Bowithick, the Burnard connection, the presence of servants and visiting kin all appear in the written record; the headstone fixes those names to a particular patch of ground. It is a typical Altarnun story: a farm of moderate size, a family rooted in the parish, and a simple stone that outlasts the house and fields they once worked.
