Tong, Shropshire

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Tong is a village in Shropshire in England - it is just off the A41 Albrighton bypass.

The village is remarkable mainly for its church, St Bartholomews, outside of which is the supposed grave of Little Nell.....despite the fact that Little Nell is a fictional character in Charles Dickens book, The Old Curiosity Shop. It is thought that Charles Dickens visited Tong church, as his grandmother worked at Tong Castle.

The 'grave' is thought to have came about because Charles Dickens' novel was serialised and shipped over to America, and as a result, Americans began coming over to England to visit scenes featured in the book. The tourists recognised the references to Tong church from the book and came to view the supposed 'grave', which of course was not there.

However, the verger (and village postmaster) at the time was an enterprising gentleman, one George H Bowden 16 August 1856 - May 1943. He is said to have asked local people to pay for a headstone, forged an entry in the church register of burials (apparently the giveaway was that he used post office ink to do this), and charged people to see the 'grave'! The headstone has been moved from time to time to make way for genuine graves (in fact this author has seen the grave in two different positions in his lifetime).

The other remarkable thing about St. Bartholomew's is the memorials inside the church, to the Vernon family. St. Bartholomew's was chosen by Simon Jenkins of The Times in 1999 as one of the best 1,000 churches (out of 15,000) in England. He awarded the church, which was mostly rebuilt in 1409, three stars out of a possible five. He refers to the almost unmatched collection of village tombs, the masterpiece of which being that of Richard Vernon, who died in 1451.