A Personal Miscellany

Music and culture, mostly.

1. the Witch 10.08.05 / 3am

   Albeit macabre, a visit to a cemetery does offer a fascinating perspective of historical culture.
2. Dan 10.08.05 / 5pm

   I share your like of Abney Park. I’m also keen on Tower Hamlets cemetery, one of the same group of seven built in the mid 19th century to relieve overcrowding in the inner city churchyards. It’s quite overgrown (though has been pruned more in recent years) – I remember finding a clearing once with a group of tiny gravestones. I thought at first maybe they were animal or children’s graves, but actually they’re just paupers’ stones. Interesting compared with the very large, grand tombs along the main routes through the cemetery – Victorian social/economic inequality carried on into death!

   Highgate is interesting too, but they only allow you in on guided tours, not allowing you the solitude and quiet contemplative state of mind that I think is more conducive to cemetery appreciation.

   Couple of photos from Tower Hamlets:

   http://www.houndworld.org/photos/imghi/thcemetery1.jpg
   http://www.houndworld.org/photos/imghi/thcemetery2.jpg
3. 11v 10.08.05 / 6pm

   Answer to the witch – macabre perhaps, but potentially a pleasurable way of being reminded of one’s mortality. London has some wonderful, overgrown graveyards, long may they remain so.

   Lovely photographs Dan, the fragility of the stone memorials is very striking… the angel’s head broken off, it’ll be the wings or the arms next… the torso balanced on the grave, but for how long? Re the pauper’s stones, many of Abney Park’s recent graves were added in the small gaps between the larger ones, but unlike their more prosperous neighbours they’ve sunk into drainage channels and lie horizontal or higgledy piggledy. I heard that about Highgate, not good at all.
4. the Witch 12.08.05 / 7pm

   11V – overgrown how? Meaning, greenery?
5. 11v 13.08.05 / 9am

   Indeed. Vines, head-high weeds and brambles. I recall reading in Abney Park cemetery years ago and becoming gradually aware of the scurrying of unseen animals, the sudden flapping of wings ~ none of it conducive to reading. At its centre is a chapel with no roof, which is really quite spooky, particularly when twilight falls. Close by is an oversize, almost luminous white lion with a gentle face. I’m only aware of Abney Park and Highgate falling into this kind of delicious neglect (due to the poverty of local councils). Perhaps there are others. Strange how fascinating dereliction and abandonment can be.

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