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 Laurence Churchyard, Ramsgate, 2018

St Laurence Churchyard, Ramsgate

Visited April 2018

I've previously visited this churchyard (back in 2015, again at Easter). That time was on a guided tour, whereas this time I was killing time, wandering through the gravestones on a grey early Spring day - although if it wasn't for the daffodils and primroses it could easily have been January!

The churchyard has been in use for many centuries, and today you can find graves going back to the 17th century. Look out for the multitude of skulls watching you from the stones as you walk past! There are well maintained areas close to the church (where most of the older graves are), and some much wilder places further in. 

Despite being surrounded by houses, and on a busy main road, is a quiet, tranquil place in the Ramsgate suburb of St Lawrence - the place and the church are indeed spelled differently.The church itself is the oldest building in Ramsgate, dating from 1062. Most of the architecture is Norman and Medieval, although of course there were some Victorian alterations...

St Augustine's Church, Northbourne, Kent

St Augustine's Church, Northbourne, Kent

Visited April 2018

The village of Northbourne, near Deal in Kent, is a small picturesque village with a lovely church and churchyard. There was a service going on in the church when I visited, so I contented myself with wandering around the churchyard. The cruciform church itself dates from the 12th century, and is on the site of an older Saxon church, traces of which can still be seen, I'm told, in the current building. 

The churchyard can be entered via paths from the village, or through a lychgate beside the village hall. It's been cleared in the past, so there are not a huge amount of old stones in situ; there are some along boundary walls, as is typical in older churchyards which have been cleared to make more room, and a few 17th & 18th century stones remain near the church, and the remains of what appears to be a mausoleum in one corner. 

There are also some lovely country walks in the area, so if you're passing do stop and take a look!

St Oswald's Church, Paddlesworth, Kent

St Oswald's Church, Paddlesworth, Kent

Visited April 2018

"The Highest Ground
The Lowest Steeple
The Poorest Parish
The Fewest People"

St Oswald's Church in the tiny village of Paddlesworth, near Folkestone in Kent, dates from the 12th century. It's accessed via a path between fields from the Cat and Custard Pot pub (where you can get the key, if the church is locked). It's well worth a visit, as is the pub, if you're in the area.

The church itself is very small, with two parts. The 12th century south doorway (on the opposite side of the building from the door you enter through) is ornate, and stands out from the rest of the exterior. 

There's a small graveyard surrounding it, mainly of 19th century graves although there are records of burials going back to the 15th century in the churchyard. Only a few gravestones remain, as it has clearly been cleared at some point; raised areas of the churchyard give clues to the long history of burials on the site. 

St Cuthbert's churchyard, Edinburgh

St Cuthbert's Churchyard, Edinburgh

Visited July 2018

At the end of Princes Street Gardens, and in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle, is the parish church of St Cuthbert's, surrounded by its historic graveyard. The church dates from the late 19th century, but there have been churches on the site since at least the 12th century, if not a few centuries earlier.

 Although it's got stunning views over the Castle, and opens directly onto the Gardens, it was quiet when I visited on a Saturday afternoon at the end of July.

The gravestones here are a real mix - in the oldest part there are loads of skulls and other memento mori symbolism, with graves dating back to the 17th century. In the northern sections the Victorian and more recent gravestones are plainer, and arranged in rows, but there are some interesting insights into the social history of the time, as so many include details of the roles in society of those buried there, not just names, dates and epitaphs.

Should you find yourself at the far end of Princes Street, do go in here - it's not nearly as well known as Greyfriars, but is just as interesting, if not more so, and much, much less visited. A true gem in the heart of Edinburgh!

St Pancras Old Churchyard, London

St Pancras Old Churchyard, London

Visited January 2019

I've visited this churchyard previously, but I'm always fascinated by the 'Hardy Tree', surrounded by old gravestones placed there when part of the burial ground was cleared to make way for an extension to St Pancras station (possibly by the author Thomas Hardy, who was working in the churchyard at the time).

This time, I was also able to spot a few stones with skulls on - yay! - and visited the former burial place of Mary Wollstonecraft. She is best known as the author of 'A Vindication of the Rights of Woman', a key feminist text published in 1792, and her husband William Godwin. Mary was also the mother of Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein. In 1851, following the wishes of Mary Shelley, the remains fo Wollstonecraft and Godwin were removed to the Shelley family tomb in the church of St Peter in Bournemouth. The gravestone in St Pancras OIld Churchyard was restore din 1992, the bicentenary of 'Vindication'.

The Hardy Tree

The gravestone of Mary Wollstonecraft and Willaim Godwin

Canongate Kirkyard, Edinburgh

Canongate Kirkyard, Edinburgh

Visited September 2016

The kirkyard of the Canongate Kirk on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh contains burials from the 18th century onwards, in a variety of states of repair. The church itself is still in use, and there are modern memorials in the kirkyard as well as ancient. 

It’s a neatly laid out kirkyard, on the Holyrood rather than Castle part of the Royal Mile, and there weren’t too many tourists when I visited. There are large monuments around the walls and towards the back, and smaller stones in the middle. A few early stones bear memento mori such as skulls, but they’re few and far between.

Two memorials of note are the memorial to the Coachdrivers of the Canongate, whose stone shows a coach and horses, and the stone to poet Robert Fergusson, who was the inspiration for Robert Burns.