West Norwood Cemetery 2017

West Norwood Cemetery, London

Visited July 2017

Another set of images from West Norwood Cemetery, one of the Magnificent Seven London cemeteries, and the easiest to get to from where I live. Hence the substantial number of photos/visits to this one! On a sunny, hot summer's day it was looking particularly splendid, with lots of shady spots to get out of the sun.

Highgate East, London, 2018

Highgate East Cemetery

Visited October 2018

The Eastern side of Highgate Cemetery in north London is not as overgrown as the West Cemetery. Although there's an entry charge to it (or included in the cost of a west cemetery tour), once in you can wander freely around, following the map of important burials if you wish.

This side of the cemetery, in use since 1860, contains Victorian burials, and modern ones as it's still in use for burials and memorial plots. It's probably most famous as being where Karl Marx is interred - you can see both his original burial plot and current one as you go round. Don't come here looking for solitude, it's quite the tourist destination now, but if you go off the main paths, and in particular away from the corner where Marx is buried, it's not too bad. Some of the memorials are quite splendid, although nothing as huge as the mausoleums of the West cemetery!

St Mary's Churchyard, Neasden

St Mary's Churchyard, Neasden, London

Visited May 2017

This ancient church in North London was founded in the 10th century, and still contains parts of the Norman and Medieval architecture. Inside the church is the shrine of Our Lady of Willesden, a place of Pilgrimage until the 1500s when the statue of Mary was burned during the Reformation. A new statue stands in its place now, and there is also a Holy Well in the church.

Outside, there are some interesting old tombs, mostly Victorian, in both the 'old' and 'new' sections. There's a lot more information about the graveyard here. Particularly interesting is that the older graves may have been marked with wooden crosses rather than carved stones, hence none now survive.

New Calton Burial Ground, Edinburgh

New Calton Burial Ground, Edinburgh

Visited June 2017

The New Calton Burial Ground was created as an overspill for Old Calton Burial Ground, half a mile away. 

The graves are, of course, mainly newer than the ones in the older site, but the burial ground has amazing views over the south of the city, including Holyrood Place, Arthur's Seat and out to the Forth in the far distance. It's also the home of bodies disinterred from the old burial ground when Waterloo Place was constructed, so it includes gravestones older than the burial ground itself! The first actual burial (rather than reinterment) on the site was in 1817.

Fascinatingly, there's a circular watchtower near the upper entrance of the burial ground, as a defence against graverobbing. From the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries it had a new purpose, as a house, despite only being 5m in diameter. Sounds perfect to me!

the watchtower

Churchyard of St Mary De Castro Church, Leicester

St Mary De Castro Church, Leicester

Visited September 2019

This Medieval church is the second oldest in Leicester and, as it's name suggests, is inside  what remains of Leicester Castle (the name St Mary De Castro translates to St Mary of the Castle). I'm told the church is well worth a visit, but it's only open 12 to 2 most days.

The churchyard is full of mostly 19th century graves, although it's been in use for many centuries before that; it's the oldest continually used open space in the centre of the city! One wall of the churchyard is medieval, the others a bit more modern.

As seen in other graveyards in Leicester and the wider county, the gravestones are primarily made from Swithland slate, as was common in the 17th to 19th centuries. Want to know more about this type of gravestone? There's a paper on them from the Leicester Archaeological Society in 1941 on the Leicester University website, here, which even references on p.217 the hundreds of slate gravestones in the churchyard of St Mary de Castro.

Highgate Cemetery - West Side (2019)

Highgate Cemetery, London - West side

Visited August 2019

It's been over 6 years since I last visited the west side of Highgate Cemetery - this is the side which is only visitable on a guided tour (£12 for a tour lasting anything from 1 to 2 hours, guide and weather depending). The most notable change was the sad removal of the ancient Cedar of Lebanon from the Circle of Lebanon; it was cut down in early August following the discovery of catastrophic rot, making it dangerously unstable. While its absence is clearly felt, the guide did tell us that plans are afoot to source a new one.

The tour took us to some old favourite graves, and some I hadn't seen before - there's no set route for the groups, so always something new to see. And a visit inside the catacombs, while not to everyone's taste, is something I always enjoy! Since my last visit, a new mausoleum, the huge, and hugely expensive, Goldhammer tomb, has been built just inside the entrance (or the exit, as it's the last burial you see before finishing the tour) - I like that despite being of the 21st century, it's very sympathetic to the styles of the 19th and 20th century burials that came before it.