Is Old English the same as Gothic?

In calligraphy, Gothic often means blackletter. In the monument trade, Gothic usually means plain sans-serif block letters. To avoid confusion, call blackletter “Old English” when you talk to a shop.

Should the death date be in Old English too?

Only if the existing dates are. Most stones with an Old English name have Roman dates, and the new date should match those.

Is blackletter hard to sandblast?

It can be at small sizes, because of the fine hairlines and tight spaces. Shops usually cut it larger than body lettering and may thicken the finest strokes.

Lettering style guide

Old English lettering on headstones: how to recognise it and add a date beside it

Old English is the monument trade’s name for blackletter: the dense, angular lettering of medieval manuscripts and early printing. Strokes that would be curves in a Roman are broken into straight segments with pointed or diamond-shaped ends, and the capitals are ornate, with hairline flourishes and doubled strokes.

On headstones it is mostly used for display: a family surname across the top of a stone, “In Loving Memory”, or a single initial. It is rarely used for dates. Many stones combine an Old English surname with names and dates in Roman or Modified Roman, so the first question for a final date is which style the existing dates actually use.

Also called: blackletter, Gothic (in the calligraphic sense), Text.

What to look for

Broken curves: Look at o, e and the bowl of a or d. Instead of round curves you see straight strokes meeting at angles, which gives blackletter its woven, dark texture.
Heavy vertical strokes: Lowercase letters are built from thick, closely spaced verticals with diamond-shaped feet and heads. Words look like a row of upright posts.
Ornate capitals: Capitals are wide and decorative, with curls, extra hairlines and sometimes internal strokes. They differ a great deal from one design to another, so compare capitals carefully.
Mostly mixed case: Blackletter set entirely in capitals is hard to read, so Old English inscriptions are almost always a capital followed by lowercase letters.

Telling characters

Dates are a good place to look. The digits 1, 4, 7 and 9 differ more between styles than 0 or 8, and month names supply telling letters: J in JAN., JUNE and JULY; G in AUG.; R in MARCH, APRIL and every month ending in -BER.

Character	In Old English, look for
R	An elaborate capital with a looped or doubled bowl; the leg may curl. Compare the capital R in a surname with your candidate, since capitals vary most.
G	Often looks closer to a C with an internal stroke or a hairline tail than to a Roman G.
J	Frequently drawn like the capital I with a hook below the line; in some designs J and I are nearly identical.
o, e	Lowercase rounds made of straight angled strokes are the clearest sign of blackletter.
1, 4, 7, 9	Blackletter digits exist but vary widely and are often less legible. If the stone’s dates are in Old English, match their digits individually; more often the dates are Roman.

Where Old English is used

Old English appears on family monuments with the surname across the top, on ledger stones and markers with a formal heading, and on some older stones for the name of the deceased. It carries a traditional, church-like feel and is sometimes chosen to reflect heritage.

Because it is decorative and dense, it is cut larger than body lettering and is not used for long lines. Epitaphs and dates beneath an Old English name are usually Roman or script.

Adding a matching date

Check the dates before anything else. If the existing dates are Roman or Modified Roman under an Old English surname, the new date should be Roman to match them, not Old English.

If the dates really are Old English, compare each digit with your candidate, keep the same height and spacing, and look closely at the weight: blackletter that is a little too light looks out of place beside older, heavier lettering. Fine hairlines may need thickening slightly so they survive the stencil.

Photograph the stone square to its face and measure the polished face’s width and height.
Measure the existing digits’ height, the spacing between them and where they sit on the stone.
Write the new date in the same format as the existing one: abbreviations, punctuation and dash.
Set it in the closest style, at the same height and spacing, on the same baseline.
Check the new date beside the old one, on a photo or a 1:1 print held against the stone, before cutting.

Closest styles in Monumize

Monumize ships one open-licensed blackletter, Blackletter (UnifrakturCook). It is a Fraktur-flavoured design, rounder in places than the textura-style Old English on many stones, so treat it as the closest style rather than an exact match.

BlackletterOpen-licensed (SIL OFL) · see samples

Not sure which style your stone uses?

Monument shops can upload a photo of the stone: Monumize reads the dates already cut, ranks the closest styles in its catalog, and shows the new date outlined on the photo. The first job is free.

Identify it from a photo Watch the 78-second walkthrough

Frequently asked questions

Is Old English the same as Gothic?: In calligraphy, Gothic often means blackletter. In the monument trade, Gothic usually means plain sans-serif block letters. To avoid confusion, call blackletter “Old English” when you talk to a shop.
Should the death date be in Old English too?: Only if the existing dates are. Most stones with an Old English name have Roman dates, and the new date should match those.
Is blackletter hard to sandblast?: It can be at small sizes, because of the fine hairlines and tight spaces. Shops usually cut it larger than body lettering and may thicken the finest strokes.