Fulham Cemetery, London

Fulham Cemetery, London

Visited February 2019

Also known as Fulham Palace Cemetery and Fulham Old Cemetery, this is a lovely place to visit, although in places it's clear that a large number of gravestones have been removed by the council to leave lawn behind. The area near the chapel (at the Fulham Palace Road entrance) has the most intact graves. Opened in 1865, the graves are mostly Victorian and Edwardian in date, and there aren't really any large monuments 

It was a crisp late winter day when I visited over a year ago (yes, yes, tardy at putting up posts!), and as well as the snowdrops in bloom the cemetery wildlife - mostly of the squirrel variety - was out and about and remarkably tame. It's well worth a wander round, and was quiet when I visited, and is probably even prettier in summer when the trees are all in leaf and it looks less barren. Maybe next year!

Highgate East, 2019

Highgate Cemetery, East Side

Visited August 2019

It seems a lifetime ago, but last summer, almost a year ago, I spent a lovely afternoon walking around the East side of Highgate Cemetery on a glorious summer's day following a tour of the West side. This side is open (usually!) to everyone without having to go on a tour, although you do have to pay an entrance fee, unless you've already paid to go on a tour of the West side. Highgate is the only one of the Magnificent Seven to charge an entry fee to those who haven't come to a funeral/visit a grave, and it feels a bit odd. But, cemeteries like this do cost a lot to maintain, and they do get a lot of tourists so in many ways I can't blame them for capitalising on that. There's loads to see, and some parts are quite wild and overgrown, although not as overgrown as Abney Park for example. It might be touristy, and it's never quiet, but it's still worth a visit.

Lockdown : Cemeteries of South London

From end March to June the UK, like the rest of the world, has been in lockdown. I'm lucky enough to live within walking distance of a few cemeteries, although in the first 5 weeks of lockdown we could only go out for an hour a day, and the cemeteries were shut. But I could still walk past, and later on I could go further afield, albeit still only on foot, and got a few more shots. 

While I did full visits to a few (Nunhead & West Norwood in particular), these ones were simply passed through or walked past as part of a longer walk, but I thought it worthwhile documenting where I'd been...

Camberwell Old Cemetery (late March)

Ladywell and Brockley Cemetery (early April)

Camberwell Old Cemetery, mid-May

Nunhead Cemetery, mid-May

Ladywell and Brockley Cemetery (late May bank holiday)

St Mary's Church, Lewisham (late May)

St Nicholas Churchyard, Deptford, gates only (mid-May)

Dulwich Old Burial Ground (31 May)

West Norwood Cemetery

West Norwood Cemetery, London

Visited June 2020

Another of my local 'Magnificent Seven' cemeteries alongside Nunhead - the only two south of the Thames, this is one of my favourite places to walk. On a rainy Sunday in early June, with lockdown still - sort of - in place, there were few people around. Some areas had been left to go a bit wild, in a good way, with cow parsley hiding smaller headstones, while around some paths which have previously been overgrown, such as Ship Path, careful cutting back had been done to reveal graves and keep paths open. More birds than usual could be heard, and in one of the loveliest moments I surprised, or was surprised by, a young fox having a nap on a grave. It ran off as soon as it woke up enough to realise I was close by, but moments like this remind me of how wild a city London is at heart, and that graveyards are spaces to be inhabited not only by the dead, but by the living too.