St Nicholas Kirkyard, Aberdeen

St Nicholas Kirkyard, Aberdeen

Visited December 2019

Not a full set of churchyard images this time, just this wonderful piece of street art created for the Nuart Festival of 2019 and left in situ. 

Beside one of the paths is this tree stump covered in tiles, with the inscription 'Here lies a tree, 1825-1987'. It was created by artist Ememem, a French artist who creates art using local ceramic tiles, mainly to fill potholes and cracks in roads and pavements. I adore it, and hope it stays there for many long years to come!

St Nicholas Kirkyard, Aberdeen (2017)

St Nicholas Kirkyard, Aberdeen

Visited December 2017

The kirkyard (churchyard) of St Nicholas is right in the heart of Aberdeen, on the main shopping street, Union Street. I've visited here before, in the summer, but on a winter's day it's still lovely (if not somewhere to sit on a bench and ponder while waiting for a bus). The early graves were much clearer without their cloak of ivy from the summer, and somehow the leaves, moss and damp air made this feel more like a country churchyard than it does later in the year. 

Around the walls of the kirkyard are the most impressive memorials, presumably to the great and the good. Many date to the 17th and 18th centuries, and there are some lovely heraldic arms, skeletons and ships dotted among the inscriptions. The main burial area is dominated by moss-covered table tombs as well as gravestones from the late 1700s onwards. The earlier ones are at the side nearest Union Street, with those over the other side (Schoolhill?) being a bit later and more staid.

St Nicholas Churchyard, Arundel

St Nicholas Churchyard, Arundel, West Sussex

Visited May 2015

At the top of the town, behind the Castle and just across the road from the Cathedral, is the 14th century church of St Nicholas. The church itself is peaceful, and well worth a visit, and it is surrounded on 3 sides by this lovely country style churchyard. 

Most of the gravestones date from the Victorian period or later, although traces of older graves can be found - some very worn gravestones still stand, and the stones that make up the paths are (at least in places) formed of broken pieces of gravestones.  There is at least one marker made of cast iron, something not found much outside of Sussex.

St Nicholas Kirkyard, Aberdeen

Kirkyard (churchyard) of the Kirk of St Nicholas, Aberdeen

Visited August 2014

This kirkyard (Scottish for churchyard) surrounds the Kirk of St Nicholas, on Union Street in central Aberdeen, just a footstep or two from the busy shopping street. The graves date back to the 17th century, and continue to the 20th century. Well worth a visit if you should be up that way 

http://www.aboutaberdeen.com/stnicholaschurch.php (includes info about the supposed ghost!)