Category: Family
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The Last Mourner
One thing fascinates me about grave-hunting. When did the last true mourner last visit this grave? This throws me back to an experience in my boyhood. It’s been oft reported that my fascination started as a result of my weekly pilgrimages to both my grandfathers graves. Besides complaining “why can’t I go off and explore?!”,…
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The Laundress
Reconnecting with a formidable woman from my family tree In the middle of Fulham, not too far from Stamford Bridge, home of Chelsea Football Club, is a building that sticks out. In comparison to the streets of terraced housing that surrounds it – it doesn’t seem to fit. Over the last century or so this…
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Young Sheldon
Whenever I start researching a cemetery, I always start by looking for a name. My own. Hopefully that won’t be interpreted by you as arrogance. My forename isn’t very common – I’ve only met two other Sheldon’s in my time: one a distant cousin and the other at a party donkey’s years ago. I am…
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Death in the British Museum: Object in Focus
Being invited by our wonderful Cemetery Club master of ceremonies Sheldon K. Goodman to participate in Death in the British Museum this coming Saturday has given me a little push towards reevaluating what the massive museum collection in Bloomsbury means to me. It has encouraged me to consider the importance of furnereal objects and how…
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This Is Halloween
Ooooh GAWD it’s my Christmas! This week sees all manner of deathly symbols and imagery invade supermarkets, schools and offices. Whilst like any other festival, its commercialisation does seem to have detracted from its origin as Samhain, a time indicating the start of the darker part of the year and the time where the veil…
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Finding Mr. Moonlight
There’s a cemetery on a common that practically no-one knows is there. It’s not listed on The London Borough of Richmond’s Cemeteries page (it should be) and the state it’s in now is a stark contrast as to how well it was maintained a century ago. I first found out about the cemetery from a…
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Who is buried under St George’s Chapel?
On the 8th September 2022, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II passed away. Aged 96, Elizabeth was the second-longest reigning monarch in history with a reign of 70 years and 214 days. This is just behind Louis XIV of France, whose record of 72 years and 110 days still remains. The Queen was several things. A…
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The Wards
An artistic dynasty’s story in Kensal Green Surfing eBay one lunchtime, I found a single page from the London Illustrated News. On a page with barely readable writing, alongside some beautiful engravings of steles and sculptures of the Copán archaeological site in South America was a slightly planer illustration celebrating the memorial to James Ward,…
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It Begins!
We’re very excited to announce our first tour of 2018! Me and Sam are planning on delivering a whole load of walks, talks and tales this year to bang the drum on how marvellous cemeteries, and the people buried within them, are. I am very pleased to announce our first tour of the year celebrates…
Cemetery Club 