Monumental masonry

Sometimes a verse from the Bible or a short poem is included, generally on a theme relating to love, death, grief, or heaven.

The choice of materials (typically a long-lasting kind of stone, such as marble or granite) and the style and wording of the inscription is negotiated between the monumental mason and the family members.

Some memorials are more elaborate and may involve the sculpture of symbols associated with death, such as angels, hands joined in prayer, and vases of flowers.

By the beginning of the twentieth century the craft had deteriorated to the point that Lawrence Weaver felt compelled to write, "To-day many of the persons who are curiously called 'monumental masons' bring to their task neither educated taste nor the knowledge of good historical examples; they are often, moreover, incompetent in their craftmanship.

The more important shops which purvey marble monuments are, if anything, rather worse, for they stereotype bad designs, which are the more offensive because more ambitious and costly.