The beautiful memorials to the dead which were known as grave-covers were used in England and Ireland from the ninth to the sixteenth century. Though they are abundant in the county, Durham cannot boast of the possession of specimens equal in merit to those found in some other parts of England. At Sedgefield Church there is a fine thirteenth-century grave-cover with a double, eight-rayed cross; it has the rare feature of a double row of dog-tooth ornament at the head; and it is the only stone known in the county which has the whole surface covered with a tracery of foliage. It is, unfortunately, much weathered. Built into the tower of the same church, and only partly visible, is another richly ornamented cover, dating probably from the middle of the fourteenth century, the foliated ornament being more naturally shown, or less conventionalized, than in earlier examples. It bears a sword and a cross moline on a small shield. The symbolism used on grave-covers is not well understood. A key is said to indicate a woman, a sword a man; shears sometimes represent a woman, sometimes a wool-stapler; a chalice or a book, or both, are placed on the gravestone of a priest or other ecclesiastic. Craftsmen are often indicated by some sign of their business, as a square for a mason, a horseshoe or a hammer for a smith. Sometimes a merchant uses his trade-mark much as an armigerous person uses his coat of arms. Built into the south porch of St. Mary’s Church in Gateshead there are two large grave-covers bearing incised crosses. One of them, a fourteenth-century slab, has at one side of the stem of the cross a key, and at the other side a fish. Most authorities think that the fish is the mystic symbol of our Saviour, which was so dear to the early Christians, and which is frequently found on the gravestones in the catacombs at Rome; but other antiquaries consider that the stone is to be more literally interpreted, and that it covered the remains of a fish-wife. The earlier grave-covers were stone lids for stone coffins, but after the use of stone coffins was discontinued, and wooden coffins were substituted, the remains of the dead were often covered by these carved stone slabs. The larger part of them are uninscribed, but grave-covers with a few lines cut on them are by no means uncommon. At Gainford there is a perfect grave-cover of the fourteenth century which bears a chalice and three floreated crosses, one large and two small. It has been suggested that these prove this to have been the burial-place of an ecclesiastic and two children, for burial in a monk’s frock or in the grave of a priest was long considered by all classes of people to be desirable. This stone, though it is of early fourteenth-century period, bears an inscription to Laurence Brockett, Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge, who died in 1768. His executors seem to have thought that an old gravestone was just as good as a new one.