St. Peter & St. Paul
Inside the Church can be found the earliest burials which are thought to be the graves of Matilda of Clare and her son James . These are found just in front of the altar rails and are considered to date from the 13th Century and to be the earliest identifiable tomb slabs in Norfolk. They both bear a cross rising from a stem surmounted by a knob, and have Latin inscriptions which may be translated as:
“Here lies buried a mother of the family of Clare by a soldier of which (family) England boasts herself renowned”
“A son rests interred at the right hand of his mother. Returning to his own birth he has sought this harbour”
Matilda was the widow of Roger, Earl of Clare, who founded the Commandery here about 1193. She had two sons, Richard and James; the former is believed to have been buried at Clare, so it is likely James who is buried here.
Outside of the Church the earliest marked grave to be found is dated 1762 (Memorial Ref: A35).
Photographs of many of the oldest headstones can be viewed on the Find a Grave website. Including the Commonwealth War Grave of Pte William Harrod (Memorial Ref: A80 )
Church and churchyard memorial inscriptions ( to 2006), have been published by Mid Norfolk Family History Society which is available to purchase from them.
Death certificates were introduced into Britain along with birth and marriage certificates in 1837 as National Registration began.
Before that, the main official records of births, marriages or deaths, were made in the local church registers, and the amount of information recorded, was pretty much up to the vicar. In 1813, the register books became officially formatted, and although expected, it wasn’t a legal requirement to register births or deaths until 1837. Since 1837, church registers have continued to be kept, and are still a valuable resource for family historians.
Transcriptions of the burial registers for the years 1813-2025 have been made by the Carbrooke Heritage Group along with a mapping of the churchyard.
A full listing of burials and headstones and their locations can be found on the Churchyard and Burials page.
See also
Carbrooke St Peter and Paul Baptism Registers 1812-1880 (Norfolk Baptism Project – external site)
Carbrooke St. Peter and St. Paul Baptism Registers 1881 – 1924
Carbrooke St. Peter and St. Paul Marriage Registers 1813 – 1901