Cleaning Gravestones By Colyn Blundell colyn.blundell@btinternet.com Regarding the letter by John Cunningham about the admirable work carried out by his Scouts, I would advise a note of caution. "Scrubbing moss from stones placed in shady areas" should not be undertaken without advice from a qualified stone conservator.Moss of all types sets its roots into the stone and whenever it is pulled away some of the stone will come with it. In many cases, particularly with the softer types of stone, this can cause large parts of the gravestone to crumble and the legend to become unreadable. This has happened in the U.K. due to over-enthusiastic family researchers. The legend on some stones here is now totally lost. If cleaning must be done, PLEASE record the legend and place the records in your local archive or record office, to help future family researchers Often information can be found from gravestones which is not available elsewhere, and suspected, or even unknown, relationships can be proved.