A thank-you for your church hatchment volunteers: a photo of the old diamond-shaped mourning board high on the nave wall, its painted arms faded by two centuries, or a volunteer's torch picking out the word Resurgam as a jigsaw

Written by the team behind Puzzlify. Puzzlify is our product, so weigh what follows with that in mind. We've tried to make this useful even if you never use it. We're not affiliated with any parish council, parochial church council, diocese, church, churches trust, heraldry society, local history society, family history society, civic society, museum, heritage trust, heritage body, heritage funder, sponsor, school or community organisation. Nothing here is legal, historical, heraldic, religious, listed building, conservation, insurance, first aid, health and safety, safeguarding, copyright, trade mark, photography permission or employment advice; check your own group's and church's guidance on gifts, photos, the building, children and people's details.

It's a grey Friday afternoon at the end of October, and the light in the parish church is fading early. High on the north wall of the nave, well above the windows, hang four large wooden frames set on their points like diamonds, each painted with a coat of arms on a background that is partly black and partly white. A retired sign-writer called Peter is standing in the aisle with binoculars, describing what he can see to a former nurse called Hannah, who is writing it all down: the colours, the shapes on the shields, the little winged heads in the corners, and a single Latin word painted on a scroll beneath. Hannah has been recording the church's monuments for nine years. A grandfather showing his granddaughter round the church stops beside them and looks up. "What are those?" the girl asks. "They're called hatchments," Hannah says. "When someone important in the parish died, one of these was hung outside their house, and later it was brought in here." The girl squints. "What does the word say?" Peter hands her the binoculars. "Resurgam," he says. "It means 'I shall rise again'."

If you want to say thank you to people like Peter and Hannah, this is a guide to doing it well, with or without a puzzle.

Who we mean

A hatchment is a funeral board painted with the coat of arms of a person who has died, usually on canvas or wooden panels in a square frame hung diagonally, so that it looks like a diamond. They were mostly made in England between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, and similar boards are found in Scotland, Wales, Ireland and parts of Europe, especially the Netherlands. Several thousand survive in British churches, often high on the walls of the nave, the chancel or the tower, where many visitors never think to look up at them.

When we say church hatchment volunteers, we mean all of them: the recorders who describe and photograph them, the people who work out the heraldry, the family history helpers who find out who each board was for, the church guides who explain them, the condition checkers who watch for flaking paint, damp and loose fixings, the fundraisers for conservation, the photographers, the archive and database volunteers, the education volunteers who help children design their own shield, the churchwardens and church council members who look after them, and the founders of the local group who first wondered whose arms were on the wall.

What they actually do

• Recorders describe each hatchment, its position, size, colours and condition, and note any inscription, so changes can be noticed over time.
• Heraldry readers work out the arms, using reference books and the help of heraldry societies, and describe them in the proper terms.
• Family history helpers match the arms to a person and a date of death, often using parish registers, wills, monuments and old county histories.
• Church guides explain to visitors what a hatchment was, how it was used, and how the black and white background can tell you who had died.
• Condition checkers look regularly, from the floor and with binoculars, for flaking paint, sagging canvas, damp, beetle and loose fixings, and report them to the church council.
• Fundraisers raise money for conservation by qualified conservators, which can be expensive for large painted boards high up a wall.
• Photographers record the boards in good light, often from a distance with a long lens, for guidebooks, archives and insurance.
• Archive and database volunteers keep the group's notes, photographs and correspondence safe and searchable, and sometimes share them with county and national surveys.
• Education volunteers help school groups understand colours and shapes in heraldry and design shields of their own.
• Churchwardens and church council members look after the building and its contents, follow the diocese's guidance and arrange any work at height properly.
• Founders and long-serving members remember who first identified the arms, who found the old letter about the family, and why the group began.

A little history, honestly told

Hatchments grew out of older traditions of displaying a dead person's arms at their funeral, and the custom is usually said to have become common in England in the early seventeenth century. When someone entitled to a coat of arms died, a hatchment was hung over the door of their house for a period of mourning, often six months to a year, and then taken to the parish church, where many have stayed ever since. The name is thought to come from "achievement", the heraldic term for a full display of arms.

The painting followed rules, though not always strictly. The background behind the arms of the person who had died was usually painted black, and the background behind a living spouse was white, so a careful reader can often tell whether the board was for a husband, a wife, a widow, a widower or an unmarried person. The family motto was sometimes replaced by a phrase about death and hope, such as Resurgam, In coelo quies ("rest in heaven") or Mors janua vitae ("death is the gate of life"). The custom faded in the nineteenth century, though a few were made later. In the second half of the twentieth century, volunteers across Britain took part in a long national survey that recorded thousands of surviving hatchments county by county, and much of what we know today comes from that patient work.

An honest note about the past

Hatchments are beautiful, but they are also a record of who mattered in a parish and who didn't. Only families entitled to bear arms had them, and in most villages that meant the landowners, the gentry and the better-off, while most people who worked their land were buried with no memorial at all. Some of the wealth behind these families came from slavery, colonial trade and plantations, and some volunteers, while researching the names on the boards, have uncovered those connections for the first time. The best thank-yous don't pretend the painted arms tell the whole story of a village; they thank people for looking at them honestly and for remembering everyone else too.

Why a photo jigsaw can work

A thank-you that gives them a moment back can be lovely: the hatchment high on the wall in the late light, the faded gold of the shield, the black and white halves of the background, the single word on the scroll, a volunteer's torch beam reaching up towards it. A photo puzzle is a small way of doing that. They piece the moment together, slowly, and at the end your note appears. It suits a volunteer who loves detail, and people who can describe a coat of arms from the floor of a nave with a pair of binoculars are some of the most patient people anywhere.

Photos that work

• the whole hatchment on the wall in soft daylight from a window
• a close-up of the shield and its colours, taken with a zoom from the floor
• the motto or Latin word on its scroll
• a row of hatchments along the nave wall, taken from the back of the church
• a volunteer with binoculars looking up at it, with their permission
• a child's drawing of a shield, or a shield they designed themselves, with the family's permission
• an old guidebook photograph beside the same view today, with permission

Getting the JPG right

Use a JPG, sharp and well lit. Stay safe and kind to the boards: never climb ladders, pews, tombs or furniture to get closer, never touch or move a hatchment, and don't use flash on old paint. Hatchments usually hang high and churches are often dim, so stand back, use your phone's zoom or a camera with a longer lens, and steady it against a pillar or pew end, or use a small tripod if allowed. Stand as square to the board as you can so the diamond stays even, tap to focus on the shield, and take a few close-ups as well, because the painted detail is half the story.

Privacy and an optional PIN

Puzzlify puzzles are private links. You can add an optional PIN so only the person you send it to can open it. Photos aren't used to train AI and aren't shared with third parties.

Say it's from you

Put your name, or your family's or group's, in the note at the end so they know who sent it. A puzzle that ends with "from the Ashworths (and the girl who borrowed the binoculars)" is a thank-you, not a mystery.

Piece counts

How to send it

Make the puzzle, write the note, publish the link, and send it by email or message, or print the link as a QR code inside a card. The recipient doesn't need an account or an app; it plays in the browser on a phone, tablet or computer.

Note examples

• "Thank you for teaching us to look up."
• "Black on one side, white on the other, and you can read it like a letter."
• "For nine years of writing down every colour. Thank you, Hannah."
• "To Peter, who can read a coat of arms from forty feet away."
• "She still says Resurgam whenever she gets up off the sofa."
• "From the whole group: thank you for remembering all of them, not only the ones with shields."

Honest pricing

The preview is free, so you can see how it looks before deciding anything. Publishing the link costs one credit (€3.99), or less per puzzle with a bundle. It's a digital puzzle, not a printed or cardboard one, so nothing arrives in the post. If a card and a few sentences feel like enough, they are.

Ideas that are not a puzzle

• a handwritten card, perhaps with a child's drawing of a shield
• a short message to the church council or local history group naming the volunteer, so it reaches them
• a donation towards conservation of the hatchments or the group's insurance in their name
• an offer of your own time: helping record, looking up a family in the registers or guiding on open days
• an old family photograph of the church interior, offered to the archive if they'd like it
• a good book on heraldry or parish churches, or a day out together to see the hatchments in another church

If a photo puzzle feels right as well, choose the hatchment, the shield, the motto or an old guidebook photograph, take it from the floor with permission and without climbing or touching anything, keep children and anyone's details out of the frame, pick a piece count that suits them, and write the note in your own words. You can make a free preview here and decide later whether to send it.

Whatever you send, the most important part is the sentence that sounds like you, written to the person who stands in a cold nave with binoculars as the light goes, who finds the name behind a painted shield, and who tells a curious girl what a single Latin word means, one colour at a time, one jigsaw piece at a time.

Written by the small team behind Puzzlify (info@puzzlify.app). Not legal, historical, heraldic, religious, listed building, conservation, insurance, first aid, health and safety, safeguarding, copyright, trade mark, photography permission or employment advice. Check your own group's and church's guidance on gifts, photos, the building, children and people's details.