Lychgate

It is cognate with the modern German Leiche, Dutch lijk and lichaam, West Frisian lyk and Swedish lik, all meaning "corpse".

[7]The most common form of lychgate is a simple shed composed of a roof with two gabled ends, covered with tiles or thatch.

In Texas and the South of the US, lychgates are simpler in construction, usually consisting of a steel or wooden span with a sign showing the name of the burial space.

[4] Most were built from around the mid-15th century although some date from earlier, including the 13th-century lychgate of St George's churchyard in Beckenham, South London, claimed to be the oldest in England.

In the Middle Ages, before mortuaries, and at a time when most people died at home, the dead were placed on a bier and taken to the lychgate where they remained, often attended against bodysnatchers, until the funeral service, which may have been a day or two later.

"[11] An English commentator, writing in 1899, noted that the lych-gate, "or corpse-gate, with its pent-house roof, is specially provided for the shelter of a funeral while awaiting the priest, but it is only in a few cases that it is exclusively used for that purpose; it is frequently, perhaps, where it exists, commonly, the principal gateway of the churchyard.

"[12] In some regions of Cornwall and Devon, such gates were called "trim-trams" – the spot where a funeral train (or tram) was brought into the proper order (or trimmed) to be ready for the officiating clergyman.