Contraption

Propped up at the back of the new church at the entrance to the Dartington Estate, next to a badge for HMS Dartington and a white ensign, the base of the staff for which can be seen top right in the snap left.

The pairs of slats joining the two poles are slightly curved, making construction less trivial than one might have first thought. Four short legs under the top and bottom pair of slats. A stretcher, but hardly the sort of thing one would expect to see on a battlefield.

We wondered whether it was a rustic version of the more elaborate coffin trolleys one comes across from time to time (see, for example, reference 1), but after consultation we thought that maybe it would have been used on a warship for a burial at sea. Body wrapped in white canvas with a cannonball tied to the feet. Or, these days, a few links of some substantial chain. Shot over the side at the end of the service.

PS: the only HMS Dartington known to google is a minesweeper, launched in 1956 and scrapped in 1970. Built, as it happens, at Dartmouth.

Reference 1: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=coffin+carriage+norfolk.