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Graveyards / Cemeteries

McAvennie said:
Thats quite shocking! I guess in some ways it is best not to know what actually goes on behind the scenes. It is like the UL that crematoriums burn numerous bodies in succession and then just scrape out the ashes and split them up for the various people who were in there. Makes practical sense but you probably don't want to consider it for too long.

Been wanting to go to Highgate cemetery for a while to have a look round and was staying over in north London last weekend but having taken my girlfriend to a taxidermy museum on Friday and a steam rally on Saturday I didn't fancy my chances of convincing her Sunday should be spent in a graveyard. We went to Milton Keynes instead... insert your own joke here about soulless places with no life.
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Milton keynes has concrete cows:hahazebs:
 
I often take my daily walk around my local cemetery in Salford a stones throw from Old Trafford and the industrial area known as Trafford Park that was bombed heavily during WW2. Some of the gravestones show the shrapnel damage.
I always take a minute to pay my respects to one of the 'Busby Babes' the Manchester United footballer Eddie Colman a victim of the Munich air disaster.
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London's historic West Norwood Cemetery has fallen into neglect.

‘Shocking’: the London cemetery with listed monuments and a protruding limb

Its beautiful Grade II* listed monuments were erected in memory of leading members of the Greek community in 19th-century London, but the graves in West Norwood cemetery are now in a dire state of neglect – with one decaying casket recently photographed covered in a thick layer of pigeon droppings, with a limb protruding.

Lambeth council, which compulsorily purchased the cemetery more than 50 years ago, recently withdrew security to save money and campaigners are calling for urgent action to protect listed monuments from ruin.

Prof Bob Flanagan, an academic at London University and chairman of the Friends of West Norwood Cemetery (FoWNC), told the Guardian that this was no way to treat the dead. “It’s disrespectful and shocking,” he said.

“It’s also a health and safety hazard for people walking round the cemetery. In some instances, coffins are exposed and there might be accidents with people falling into decayed vaults.”
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Yes, there is indeed a photo of a tomb with a protruding leg. (Not a skeletonised limb, incidentally. Looks, well, fresh.)
 
We have a couple of churches in the town with relatively large cemeteries. Both of which have been on my route home from the pub given the various places I have lived. It surprised me how many people, grown men, wouldn’t contemplate walking through a churchyard of a night because of some irrational fear that a dead person might “get you”.

I must admit that I have at times lingered in one churchyard as the particular church used to be a Protestant but some years back it fell out of use and was bought by the local catholic diocese and became the local RC church. I’ve wondered what those who were buried there 100 plus years ago, or sooner, would have thought about that?
 
Many moons ago I often unlocked the town cemetery, one morning I still remember
it was a bit misty but the cem being low lying and having a wall was full up to about
4 ft with dense fog, I used a motorbike for work in those days and once in the cem
I could not see the road, but what any poor sod thought if they saw my head and
shoulders gliding disembodied through the cem that morning I never found out.
 
Strange thing happened about an hour ago .

I was picking my son up from School, and because of the increasing parking problems near to the school, I parked my car a five minute walk away - just at the other side of the parish Church, where there are no parking issues.

It’s a lovely late summer’s day here in North Essex, sun strong and bright with a slight breeze to keep the heat at bay, however as I was walking through the Churchyard, I noticed that the breeze had completely dropped off, and everything became totally still.

The other side of the Churchyard has an old wooden gate, which I have to pass through to leave the Church grounds, and as I got closer it fully opened of its own accord. It was like someone was standing there opening it for me.

A little amused by it. I passed through, and down some steps and stood and looked at the gate for a few seconds, when suddenly the breeze struck up again, causing the gate to shut with a slight thud.

I’m not saying there is anything fortean in this, It was just a bit weird.

Made my day though. :)
 
Dick Turpin said:
Strange thing happened about an hour ago .

I was picking my son up from School, and because of the increasing parking problems near to the school, I parked my car a five minute walk away - just at the other side of the parish Church, where there are no parking issues.

It’s a lovely late summer’s day here in North Essex, sun strong and bright with a slight breeze to keep the heat at bay, however as I was walking through the Churchyard, I noticed that the breeze had completely dropped off, and everything became totally still.

The other side of the Churchyard has an old wooden gate, which I have to pass through to leave the Church grounds, and as I got closer it fully opened of its own accord. It was like someone was standing there opening it for me.

A little amused by it. I passed through, and down some steps and stood and looked at the gate for a few seconds, when suddenly the breeze struck up again, causing the gate to shut with a slight thud.

I’m not saying there is anything fortean in this, It was just a bit weird.

Made my day though. :)
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Is it a lych gate?
 
When I was on holiday my partner and I went to Dyfennog to see the incredible old yew tree there. (Some experts say it could be 5,000 years old, maybe maybe not, but it’s old. Janis Fry who’s an expert on yew trees is convinced it’s the oldest tree in Europe). I wanted to see it after reading about it a few years ago, and when I realised we were only 10 miles from it, I decided to go.

It’s a lovely old churchyard. The church was sadly shut (due to COVID, I think) which was a pity because I’d have liked to see it. But it was really the tree I came for. It’s a churchyard so there are other yews, and there’s a little low-to-the-ground wooden signpost that points the way which we didn’t see when we initially went in.

But you do know it’s ‘that’ tree. It dominates. It might be built at the foot of a neolithic burial chamber and when you’re there it’s not hard to believe the theory that everything here might have been built around that tree. It has a real, very ancient presence.

There was not one person around, and I thought, how strange, this beautiful and incredibly venerable living thing right here, and yet no-one’s here but us.

I admit I was moved and impressed by it. There’s a smaller tree a few feet from it, which has been DNA tested as the same tree, and it had the ‘Golden Bough’ on it, the very pale branches that have been seen on other very old yews in the last few years. I wanted to take something away but didn’t like to. I think I had a few needles in my hair though!

Lovely, peaceful powerful place. I’m so glad I went.

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Fanari_Lloyd said:
When I was on holiday my partner and I went to Dyfennog to see the incredible old yew tree there. (Some experts say it could be 5,000 years old, maybe maybe not, but it’s old. Janis Fry who’s an expert on yew trees is convinced it’s the oldest tree in Europe). I wanted to see it after reading about it a few years ago, and when I realised we were only 10 miles from it, I decided to go.

It’s a lovely old churchyard. The church was sadly shut (due to COVID, I think) which was a pity because I’d have liked to see it. But it was really the tree I came for. It’s a churchyard so there are other yews, and there’s a little low-to-the-ground wooden signpost that points the way which we didn’t see when we initially went in.

But you do know it’s ‘that’ tree. It dominates. It might be built at the foot of a neolithic burial chamber and when you’re there it’s not hard to believe the theory that everything here might have been built around that tree. It has a real, very ancient presence.

There was not one person around, and I thought, how strange, this beautiful and incredibly venerable living thing right here, and yet no-one’s here but us.

I admit I was moved and impressed by it. There’s a smaller tree a few feet from it, which has been DNA tested as the same tree, and it had the ‘Golden Bough’ on it, the very pale branches that have been seen on other very old yews in the last few years. I wanted to take something away but didn’t like to. I think I had a few needles in my hair though!

Lovely, peaceful powerful place. I’m so glad I went.

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You reminded me of the 'Ankerwyche Yew', a yew near where I used to live in Surrey which is reported to be 2500 years old.

Ankerwyke-yew.jpg


https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/runnymede/features/ankerwycke
 
The Dyfennog Yew was a waypoint on a bike rally I was on a few years back, there's something
about it that's for sure worth a visit.
 
Nosmo King said:
You reminded me of the 'Ankerwyche Yew', a yew near where I used to live in Surrey which is reported to be 2500 years old.
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I’ve read about that too. :) I bought a lovely book called The Immortal Yew last week but sent it to an uncle an aunt who will enjoy it, but that one was in there and others, all very old, some of them historied like the Ankerwyche yew. (I think that ‘golden bough’ has been found on that tree, too).
 
Groundhogs are digging up bones in a St. Louis area cemetery.
Groundhogs digging up bones at Alton cemetery

There are signs of digging in at least five locations at the Alton City Cemetery. At one of those locations, there’s a collection of bones, including a human femur bone, that have been dug up and left beside a grave.

Greg Wilkey and his wife visited the historic cemetery, which has graves dating back to the Civil War. They’re from Utah and were in Alton on a trip down the Mississippi River and saw the bones on Friday.

“Very good diggers,” he said.

It turns out the diggers, are groundhogs. Cemetery Sexton Don Huber said it’s not the first time that groundhogs have dug tunnels in the cemetery but it’s the first time they’ve unearthed bones. Wildlife removal expert Michael Beran said the groundhogs are probably burrowing down to where old pine caskets have disintegrated and the animals were clearing out the space. ...

Huber said a wildlife removal company is expected to start working to trap and remove the groundhogs in a few days. He said later the bones will be reinterred in the appropriate graves.
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FULL STORY: https://www.kmov.com/2022/07/23/groundhogs-digging-up-bones-alton-cemetery/
 
I visited my parent's grave yesterday for the first time in weeks to do some watering (dead Berberis could feasibly recover). Something had been digging in the plot, in the corner where my mother's ashes were deposited. I'd say fox, maybe dog, not enough damage for badger and I'll do a repair job next weekend - but it has never happened before and it is upsetting as it is not an old grave.
 
Meanwhile ... Cemeteries in Italy, having fallen into disrepair and neglect, are literally falling apart ...

NaplesCemeteryCollapse-2210.jpg
Coffins left hanging in air after second Naples cemetery collapse this year

At least a dozen coffins have been left dangling in the air after the collapse of a four-storey building containing burial niches at the oldest cemetery in Naples.

It is the second such incident at the site this year, with critics blaming the poor management of cemeteries in the southern Italian city.

Authorities sealed off the Poggioreale cemetery – the biggest in Naples – as an investigation into the collapse of the marble building, called the Resurrection, in the cemetery’s Porta Balestrieri area, got under way. No visitors were at the cemetery at the time of the collapse on Monday afternoon as it had closed for the day.

“The collapse was preceded by a bang and a dense cloud of dust,” said Vincenzo Santagada, a Naples councillor with responsibility for cemeteries. “As an administration we are taking care of all the necessary formalities.”

A separate investigation is continuing after about 300 burial niches were destroyed in the collapse of a building in another area of the cemetery in January. ...

In February last year, 200 coffins fell into the sea off the Ligurian coastal town of Camogli in northern Italy after parts of a cemetery collapsed in a landslide, which also destroyed two chapels. ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ter-second-naples-cemetery-collapse-this-year
 
Bad Bungle said:
I visited my parent's grave yesterday for the first time in weeks to do some watering (dead Berberis could feasibly recover). Something had been digging in the plot, in the corner where my mother's ashes were deposited. I'd say fox, maybe dog, not enough damage for badger and I'll do a repair job next weekend - but it has never happened before and it is upsetting as it is not an old grave.
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Our cemetery warns about rabbits. You should avoid chrysanthemums and carnations, because they like these especially.
 
Bad Bungle said:
I visited my parent's grave yesterday for the first time in weeks to do some watering (dead Berberis could feasibly recover). Something had been digging in the plot, in the corner where my mother's ashes were deposited. I'd say fox, maybe dog, not enough damage for badger and I'll do a repair job next weekend - but it has never happened before and it is upsetting as it is not an old grave.
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Could it be rats? Over the last couple of years I have had to remove buckets and buckets of soil from where they've been digging. I eventually get rid of them and then, a few months later they're back.
I expect one day soon for the ground to collapse as there has been so much soil removed.
 
I've mentioned this before, but I think the links to images have gone rusty. So here's a few recent photographs of my own of the decidedly esoteric looking Leishman memorial in Edinburgh's beautiful Dean Cemetery.

A very peaceful place to sit on a day off - I regularly make pilgrimages when I'm in the city, and the Leishman memorial never ceases to fascinate. I'd love to have been a fly on the wall in the upper class drawing rooms of fusty old Victorian Edinburgh when this was erected - I dare say it was a conversation piece.

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Appalling.

The Anglican Church and United Kingdom have expressed "dismay" at an attack on a historic cemetery close to Jerusalem's walled Old City.

More than 30 graves at the Protestant Cemetery on Mount Zion were desecrated on Sunday. Crosses were broken and headstones toppled and smashed.

Jewish extremists have been blamed for the vandalism.

"We have noticed that hatred speech and hatred crimes are on the rise," Anglican Archbishop Hosam Naoum said.

Standing next to the vandalised grave of the second Anglican bishop of Jerusalem, Samuel Gobat, he said there had been a recent increase in spitting at Christians and attacks on their holy sites.

"This is only an indication that we are not in a place where people can tolerate each other or accept each other," Archbishop Naoum added. "We see more exclusion, more segregation and that is what really grieves us in this city of Jerusalem."

In a tweet, the British consulate in Jerusalem said: "This is the latest in a string of attacks against Christians and their property in and around the Old City. The perpetrators of religiously motivated attacks should be held accountable."

Security camera footage shows two young men carrying out the attack. They are wearing kippahs, or skullcaps, and knotted fringes known as tzitzit on their clothes, indicating they are religious Jews.

Three Commonwealth war graves of Palestinian police officers were among those attacked, while several stone crosses were seen lying broken on the ground.

The Anglican Church said the targeting of the crosses clearly suggests "these criminal acts were motivated by religious bigotry and hatred against Christians".

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) told the BBC it was "appalled" by the vandalism.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-64163185
 
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