Clean up, a grave duty

•  Phyllis and Peter McLennan contemplating the grave task ahead of them. 

By Tony Scott,
July 07, 2021

A regular chore willingly carried out to maintain his ancestors’ graves has turned into something of a community duty for Peter McLennan to renovate headstones in the old section of Scottsdale’s Ellesmere cemetery.

Aided by wife Phyllis, he’s working his way through graves in the section.

“I wish I’d started 15 years ago.

“There’s some pretty solid work involved in it.”

He estimates it could take five years to complete the task.

“We’ll be 80 by the time we finish,” Mrs McLennan said.

They are using a metal detector to find detached lead lettering and hammering it back on headstones and recording inscriptions on marble, but it’s the granite and stone graves that are being most dramatically repaired.

Many of the messages are indecipherable but Mr McLennan has come up with a method of working on them using molasses as a removable stencil.

The goo is painted on carefully avoiding the lettering, which is then spray painted with a gold paint half a dozen times.

“We then scrape off the molasses and lichen and other mess and the words just leap out at you.”

Mr McLennan said he was moved to take on the job out of respect for the pioneers of the Scottsdale area.

A map of the graveyard shows about 40 per cent of the graves are not marked at all and many of those that are have been long neglected.

“I think it's a shame that more is not done for the people that made the place that it's become.

“Up the back there there’s a piece of concrete with the name of the first doctor in Scottsdale scratched into it. 

“He’s buried with his whole family and it just says here lies Dr Thomas and family. 

It’s just disgusting that a community leader like that can’t be better recognised.

Mr McLennan said he was doing the work with a  spirit of community but appreciated support of the Dorset Council, which had installed an extra water tap to connect his pressure cleaner to.