Finding the plot: England's tombstone tourists
By Bethan Bell BBC News
7 May 2017
Visiting a graveyard for enjoyment is not everyone's cup of tea. But tombstone tourists - or "taphophiles" - are increasingly to be found wandering through cemeteries, examining headstones, and generally enjoying the sombre atmosphere. What is the appeal?
Historians, genealogists,
grave-rubbers and fans of the macabre all have their reasons for sloping round burial grounds - but there is also a tourist market for those wanting more than a traditional sightseeing trip.
Sheldon Goodman, grave enthusiast and co-founder of the Cemetery Club, takes groups of interested people through various burial grounds in London, including Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park, Brompton Cemetery, and Highgate.
He says one of the reasons the pastime is increasing in popularity is the number of celebrity deaths over the past few years:
"Highgate, the best-known London cemetery, is due to be receiving the remains of George Michael," he says.
"Events like that really increase awareness and the value of what I like to call 'libraries of the dead'."
Although Michael's plot is in a private area of Highgate closed off to tourists, the cemetery contains many famous graves which can be visited - ranging from those of political philosopher Karl Marx to television prankster Jeremy Beadle.
It also contains some of the finest funerary architecture in the country, says the Friends of Highgate Cemetery Trust, which has looked after and maintained the site since 1975.
The Egyptian Avenue, Circle of Lebanon and the Terrace Catacomb, along with more than 70 other monuments, have been listed by English Heritage, while the cemetery itself is categorised as a Grade I-listed park, complete with landscaping and exotic formal planting.
But it's not just the famous cemeteries that capture the imagination of taphophiles.
Nicola Carpenter from Maidenhead has been fascinated by graveyards since she was aged about eight, when she and other local children would play in the village cemetery. She continues to visit cemeteries a couple of times a month and writes a blog called
Beneath Thy Feet.
"I can remember back then reading the names on the headstones and wondering who these people were and what sort of lives they had lived," she says.
"I visit graveyards to satisfy my curiosity as to who these people were that came before me and how they lived in and shaped the town I live in now. My local Victorian cemetery is one I visit often and is where I have found some of the most interesting life stories, and some influential and famous people are buried there.
Ms Carpenter says through her wanderings she has "discovered many fascinating stories - of love and friendship, of betrayal and revenge, murder and suicide.
"Some gravestones have telling inscriptions and epitaphs. For example, a gravestone in Bisham, Berkshire reads, 'In Loving Memory of Vivian Charlotte, wife of David Lewis. Born 22 April 1923 and died in her racing car at Brighton Speed Trials 14 September 1963'.
etc...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-39480595
