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. After World War I a number of lychgates were built as war memorials, for example that of Sandridge, Hertfordshire. Sandridge lychgate is a Grade II listed building as is that of St Cuthbert's, Allendale, Northumberland. However, many of these memorial lychgates, such as that of St Peter's, Felkirk, Yorkshire, are not listed. Several new examples were built to mark the new millennium, such as that at Lenton, Lincolnshire. Use 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. The lychgate kept the rain off, and often had seats for the vigil watchers. Bodies at that time were buried in just shrouds rather than coffins. At the funeral, the priest conducted the first part of the service under the shelter of the lychgate. In traditional usage, the gate was "the sheltered point at which the coffin was set down at a funeral to await the clergyman's arrival." 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." 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. In parts of Scotland, Lykerstanes (lit. "corpse stones") may have served a similar purpose. Lychgates serve to differentiate consecrated and unconsecrated space, and serve as a liminal space. Stone lychgates may create an increased aural awareness of the transition from one space to another by creating a tangible contrast between sounds inside and outside. In England, there was a folk belief that the spirit of the last person buried stands watch at the gate till the next is buried, leading to funeral fights at the entrance to decide which corpse should be buried first. Wedding