Headstone cleaning

Abbafan1972

Morning. 

I went to visit my grandparents grave recently as hadn’t been there for a while. The Headstone is white marble and it is absolutely filthy and looks awful. 

Can anyone recommend something to clean it without damaging the headstone or the lettering? 

Thanks in advance. 

elsien

Just water for marble, according to this.
https://www.coop.co.uk/funeralcare/advice/how-to-clean-headstones

YoungBlueEyes

I'd say it depends how mucky they are and what the muck is.

I was a long while not getting to my parent's grave, and their headstones were dirty - bird poop, dried on dead leaves, moss/lichen etc. The second time I went I took a dry cloth with the tiniest wee dot of washing up liquid on it - there's an outside tap and a water trough in the graveyard. I picked the big muck off then wet my cloth and gave them a good wash, then rinsed them down with more water using a milk carton that people leave next to the trough. Be really careful rubbing the lettering because if it's gold leaf it's expensive to have redone. Once it's clean you only need a wet cloth to keep it that way. 

And take a sandwich bag to bring your mucky wet cloth home in!

Edit - and rubber gloves 

twopenny

I did a lot of research on this and came to no conclusion.

In the end I used a brush you use for dishes, an old toothbrush, .lots of paper towels and flash liquid spray.
A small painters bucket for water and an old milk bottle to take water over.
Scrub an area,  pour water to wash it off, rinse brush and repeat. I even used jif for the smooth part rinsing each as soon as clean. Mopped bits using the towels.

It takes quite a while the first time and may need a second go another day but easier after that if you keep it maintained.

Yes take care with painted or lead lettering.
The lead lettering on my grandparents stone has come out but it's been 40yrs and could be the pheasants who like to pick for some reason.
You can buy the soft lead if you're good at that sort of thing but will take ages. I've got some small tins of enamel paint I'm going to try.

And yes, rubber gloves 

Postik

I would advise soapy water only. Things like vinegar, cream cleaner, etc might be too harsh and could damage it.

With soapy water you'll need to be patient.

Sometimes with dried on bird muck on the car I'll wet a cloth and lay it over the top, then keep it wet for 15 mins. After removing the cloth the bird muck is softened and wipes straight off.

It's perhaps more difficult with a headstone being horizontal, but for tough stains and marks I wonder if you could wrap it in an old towel, wet it through with lots of water and leave it to soak. Just an idea.

ris2015

The traditional cleaning solution for marble headstones is to rub it with a pumice stone. Dunked in copious amounts of water it forms an excellent cleaning paste.
I use this method to clean family memorial stones up to around the 1960's being careful not to damage the lettering which was in lead at that time.
Not sure that it is suitable for the more modern marble stones which have been polished to a mirror finish.

FreeBear

ris2015 said:

The traditional cleaning solution for marble headstones is to rub it with a pumice stone. Dunked in copious amounts of water it forms an excellent cleaning paste.
Not sure that it is suitable for the more modern marble stones which have been polished to a mirror finish.

Pumice is a fine abrasive, so probably not the best thing to use on marble. Soapy water plus elbow grease is best. Bird poo is mildly corrosive, so extra scrubbing will be needed, and fingers crossed, it hasn't done too much damage. Once dry, give the marble a polish with Renaissance Wax to give it a bit of protection.

DullGreyGuy

Warm water and a soft cloth... you can bring boiling water in thermos and dilute it with cold water on site. Soak anything that stubborn which can be done with laying a wet cloth on it and then rinse and repeat. Standard washing up liquid for anything worse.

Guess you could try products designed for natural marble worktops but shouldn't be necessary in most cases.

Rightfully or wrongly... personally I'm not really into cleaning gravestones. Ultimately most stones will stop being looked after at some point and so it's delaying the inevitable. Similarly have spent interesting times searching around graveyards trying to trace lost relatives (or for a laugh in parts of Mexico) and the weathered stone and lichen are all part of it. The fact our local pub when growing up used to spill out into the long closed graveyard in summer may have influenced this too (pub was in a converted rectory next to the church)

Eldi_Dos

There is a Kirk just north of Skara Brae in Orkney in a very picturesque location, in the graveyard there are quite a few gravestones with no one buried under them. They are there for islanders who worked in far flung reaches of the empire and never made it back home, it is quite poignant standing in such a beautiful location reading of their life stories.