Category: Lost
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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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Stumbling Stones
My foot scuffed something. I was walking down the Kloveniersburgwal in Amsterdam in 2018 when something slightly tripped me over. I looked down and saw something shiny embedded into the pavement. There were small plaques, which stood slightly proud from the brickwork. They resembled brass beer coasters, so I knelt down for a closer look.…
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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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Vesty
I’m in a cemetery today. I don’t want to be. Anyone who knows me will know one of my favourite jokes, considering my passion for cemeteries as museums of people, is to ‘threaten’ people with a blog post. “I’ll be writing about you one day!” I say, tongue in cheek. Earlier this month, it finally…
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The Tortoise & The Opera Singer
What on earth an opera singer has to do with a tortoise? We all know about Conchita from Eurovision but there’s another you should know about, whose unique grave resembles something from a Terry Prachett novel. Back in March I discovered the above image and the tag line ‘Opera Singer‘. The smile, the enthusiam, the…
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One of the most Impudent, Heartless Business Scoundrels On Record
‘The octopus is soft – soft and flabby. Its form when not in action has nothing terrible about it, it is a greyish mass, not especially distinguishable from other organisms. The octopus is crafty. When its victim is unsuspicious, it opens suddenly and holds him in its grasp…he draws you to him and into himself.…
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The Cedar’s Farewell
Today we mourn an icon. Trees hold a very special place in our hearts and you only have to look at how important the Bethnal Green Mulberry is and its value to the local community to see what imagery and emotion they conjure. Permission was given to remove this historic tree from its current site (being…
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The Lost Village of the East End
Hard to imagine this part of the East End being a queer sanctuary and a once idyllic rural retreat… I recently gave a walking tour around old Bromley-By-Bow on behalf of my good friends at Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park and the Women’s Environmentalist Network. It’s an area I’m vaguely familiar with, as my old local…
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The Forgotten Heir
Our post today is by fellow blogger Charlotte on a mission to find quiet, cultured and unusual corners of London. The cemeteries and burial grounds of Britain are filled with ‘what-if?’s. Each headstone, tomb and unmarked grave is a reminder of lost potential, of chain reactions cut short and countless questions about what might have…
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Why Is King’s Cross Called ‘King’s Cross’?
I’m sure many of you have found yourself asking this exact question when walking through the concourse; eyeing the massive queue of people waiting patiently to clutch on to the luggage trolley that’s on its way to Platform 9 3/4. It’s all down to one man. An entrepreneur who, had he been alive today, would have…
Cemetery Club 