Headstone puzzle a cryptic torment for confused Devil
ALMOST 200 years ago Wales was a far more religious place than it is today. For many, church was an intrinsic part of everyday life.
However, one man was willing to go to quite extreme levels to make sure he didn’t get waylaid by the Devil in a bid to get into heaven.
John Renie was a house painter who lived in Monmouthshire during the early 1800s. He died aged 33 in 1832.
Experts have suggested that he was so concerned about getting into heaven that he carved his own gravestone to try to confuse the Devil.
His very distinctive gravestone is a 285-letter puzzle which looks like a word search.
In the middle there is an “H”, from where you can start and work outwards in any direction (except diagonally) and find there are apparently 46,000 ways to spell out the sentence “Here lies John Renie”, according to Find a Grave. The distinctive grave lies outside St Mary’s Priory Church in Monmouth, and passers-by often spend time trying to work out its cryptic message.
John’s remains no longer lie beneath the stone and are elsewhere, as the stone has been moved from its original position.
The grave is Grade II listed but is not the only listed monument in the churchyard.
The memorial to Charles Heath (1761-1831) is also listed. He was an important local historian and antiquarian and sometime Mayor of Monmouth. He was also a bookseller, who had his house and shop in what is now Agincourt Square, in Monmouth.