Category: Urban
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Life Overlooking Death
Imagine being in hospital and glancing out of the window. The first thing you see is a cemetery. Beautiful juxtaposition or unfortunate irony? Behind Charing Cross Hospital in Hammersmith is the oasis of Margravine Cemetery; now commonly used as a cut -through between the hospital and Barons Court station. Where once orchards and market gardens…
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Two Cemeteries: One Purpose
“Enough of the Victoriana!” I thought. I was growing increasingly aware that my writings for the blog were taking me to the grand, decaying remains of death celebration at its peak and largely ignoring the newer places of rest which had opened in successive years: places where a fair number of us will probably end…
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The Crystal Palace
By Christina On the night of 30th November 1936, thousands of people gathered around Upper Norwood in south London to watch an iron and plate glass building known as The Crystal Palace burn to the ground. Many came because they had seen a strange orange glow in the sky, and they brought their families and…
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Shuffle Off This Mortal Coil
by Sheldon What does the first Labour Mayor of Poplar, the bloke who built the Cutty Sark and the supplier of animals to P. T. Barnum have in common? Following the successful debut of our Brompton tour, I am pleased to announce I shall be delivering a tour of Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park as part…
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Choo Choo(oooohh) – The Ghostly Ghost Train that London Forgot
by Christina ‘The dead-space we find in our living environments’ – this is a great description by Sheldon of what we do here at Cemetery Club and of what captures our interest. I’ve been using our time off to step back and see what unexplored dead spaces come to me instead of actively looking for…
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So, Where Were We?
by Sheldon Apologies to all Cemetery Club aficionados for the unexpected hiatus – the demands of the living consumed our passion for the dead (I had my final tour guiding assessment and Christina had the SE20 Craft Fair and Marathon to run). We’re back now, on what is just a few days after our anniversary!…
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The Prefab Museum
Booklet by artist Keara Stewart By Christina I really like many things and these include the 1940’s, architecture, community spirit and south London. So when I discovered there was to be a temporary Prefab museum popping up within the Excalibur Estate in Catford, south east London, I knew it would be worth a visit. It’s…
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Postman’s Park
Our contributor today is City of London & Westminster tour guide Tina Hodgkinson. Tina leads guided walks combining world famous landmarks with hidden treasures often missed by the crowds. I invited her to write about a little known gem in the City near the Museum of London – Postman’s Park. One of my favourite places in the City of London is…
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The Open Air Cathedral
by Sheldon Out of all the Magnificent Seven cemeteries we’ve visited, there is one that beckons to us time and time again. It’s the Cemetery that started our journey into the Victorian underworld and sparked our interest into the past. A cemetery that has had remarkably mixed fortunes over its existence, from being founded as…
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