Abney Park Cemetery, 2018

Abney Park Cemetery, London

Visited August 2018

Abney Park Cemetery is one of the 'Magnificent Seven' Victorian cemeteries in London. It's situated off Stoke Newington High Street, and is managed as a woodland park and nature reserve, having originally been laid out as an arboretum as well as cemetery. This means everything's a bit overgrown, rather than manicured, but gives it character. On a startlingly hot summer's day, it was full of shoppers, walkers and passers by seeking a spot of shade. There's a visitor centre on site with maps, postcards, etc, and the chapel is often used for events.

The cemetery opened in 1840, and was set up for the burial of Dissenters (non-Church of England), with a non-denominational chapel at the centre. It is probably best known as the resting place of William and Catherine Booth, founders of the Salvation Army, but there are over 200,000 burials here to discover!

There is an ongoing events programme at the cemetery, and if you haven't visited before then the 1st Sunday of the month guided walks are a great place to start.

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

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 Mary the Virgin church, Fordwich, Kent

Churchyard of St Mary the Virgin, Fordwich, Kent

Visited September 2017

The church of St Mary the Virgin is in the small town of Fordwich, near Canterbury. Fordwich itself is a lovely, old town with lots of timber framed buildings, and a timber framed town hall. It’s the smallest town in Englan with its own town council, and used to be an important Medieval port. 

The church itself is Norman in parts with a lot of later additions. It’s been out of use since the 1990s but is now looked after by the Churches Conservation Trust and is open to the public. Inside are old box pews, wall decorations and memorial brasses. There’s also a carved stone reputed to be part of the sarcophagus of St Augustine, but it was behind trestle tables on my visit and inaccessible.

In the little graveyard surrounding the church are some wonderful old gravestones with plenty of skulls and other symbols of death and remembrance. Behind the church the burials continue, with more Victorian and later stones.

If you’re in the area, Fordwich and it’s old church are definitely worth a visit (including the dog-friendly pub next door!)