The cemetery serving a submerged parish: St James, Stocks-in-Bowland

April 29, 2021July 29, 2021 Caroline7 Comments

As Britain’s population grew throughout the 19th Century and the demand for water in its towns and cities increased, local authorities and water boards looked to rural areas, building dams in remote valleys and creating large reservoirs. The Stocks Reservoir, completed in the 1930s, is one such reservoir, located in Dalehead in the Forest of Bowland in north west England. The reservoir takes its name from the village of Stocks-in-Bowland, most of which now lies beneath the flooded valley. The village church of St James, however, was dismantled and reconstructed on higher ground and the occupants of its churchyard moved to a new burial ground. What intrigued me most about this peaceful little burial ground is that many of its burials have taken place in the years since the Stocks Reservoir was built and the local population displaced. The nearest villages are all a few miles away, with only a few scattered farms in between, but the families of those with links to Dalehead and Stocks-in-Bowland have continued to bury their dead here, nearly a century after the valley was drowned by the reservoir.

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20th Century · Putney

An exiled leader’s grave on the edge of Wimbledon Common

March 9, 2021March 9, 2021 Caroline11 Comments

The vast cemetery at Putney Vale in south-west London seems an unlikely last resting place for one of the men involved in Russia’s revolutions of 1917, but close to the back wall of the cemetery, shaded by the trees of Wimbledon Common, two bright white Orthodox crosses mark the graves of Russia’s first post-tsarist leader, Alexander Kerensky, and members of his family. Kerensky’s burial at Putney Vale would be understandable enough if he had spent his last years in London, but he spent the majority of his long exile in the United States. A strange drama played out after his death that saw his body rejected by several churches before a burial place was finally found for him in London.

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17th Century · 18th Century · 20th Century · Islington

The lost burying-ground of London’s Quakers

April 17, 2020July 3, 2022 Caroline15 Comments

Bunhill Fields, just to the north of the City of London, is one of the capital’s most famous burial grounds and particularly noted as the final resting place of many of London’s nonconformist Christians. Close to Bunhill Fields is another green space, its history as a burial ground much less conspicuous than that of its famous neighbour. But like Bunhill Fields, Quaker Gardens has a long history of burial and religious dissent. I visited Quaker Gardens on a sunny winter afternoon in early 2020 to see what remained of this historic site.

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19th Century · 20th Century · 21st Century · Cairo

Taking a walk through history at Cairo’s Museum of Egyptian Antiquities

October 13, 2019July 29, 2021 Caroline9 Comments

Artefacts from Ancient Egypt are scattered in museums across the world, with many of them being excavated and removed from Egypt by European- and American-led expeditions during the 19th Century and finding their way into the hands of private collectors or foreign museums. However, some of the best-known treasures of ancient Egypt – the contents of the tomb of the boy-king Tutankhamun, discovered in the Valley of the Kings in 1922 – have remained in Cairo, leaving Egypt only very occasionally for wildly popular world tours. A new exhibition featuring artefacts from Tutankhamun’s tomb is due to open in London in November 2019, after a record-breaking run in Paris. Dubbed a ‘farewell tour’, these artefacts will be moving to a new, permanent home at the new Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza when they return to Egypt. The museum that has housed Tutankhamun’s treasures since their discovery in 1922 is a Cairo landmark, a visit to which was described by a recent article as ‘like walking through history itself, even before taking into account that it also houses one of the world’s most significant collections of ancient artifacts.’ (source)

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1st-5th Centuries · 20th Century · 21st Century · City of London

Uncovering the story of Roman London’s mysterious Mithraeum

December 3, 2017February 5, 2019 Caroline5 Comments

In November 2017 one of London’s most famous Roman sites reopened to the public after spending several years hidden away in storage. The Mithraeum, a subterranean temple dedicated to the god Mithras, has had an eventful afterlife since its celebrated rediscovery in 1954. Moved from its original site to make way for a new office development, it was reconstructed at a new location nearby before the great wheel of redevelopment turned again and offered the chance for the Mithraeum to be reinstated at its original location on the banks of the now-underground river Walbrook. The Mithraeum offers modern Londoners a glimpse into one of the Roman period’s more unusual elements: the secretive cult of Mithras, and the work to restore its ruins to the banks of the Walbrook also gave archaeologists an incredible opportunity to discover more about Roman-era Londinium.

The new entrance to the Mithraeum at 12 Walbrook

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19th Century · 20th Century · West Norwood

West Norwood: the first Gothic Revival cemetery

August 27, 2017July 17, 2019 Caroline9 Comments

West Norwood, which opened as the South Metropolitan Cemetery in 1837, is one of London’s most spectacular cemeteries, its grand tombs and monuments laid out along landscaped paths and mature trees. Of the “Magnificent Seven” cemeteries that opened on London’s outskirts in the early Victorian period, West Norwood was arguably the most sought-after of them all as a burial place, with its beautiful location on a south London hillside. The wealth of many of those interred there is reflected by the beautiful memorials raised in their memory.

Mausoleum of Alexander Berens, a wealthy linen draper and seller of luxury goods

We’ve already visited the Greek Orthodox enclave within West Norwood, but now it’s time to explore the rest of the cemetery and the plethora of historic and interesting graves that can be found there. Continue reading “West Norwood: the first Gothic Revival cemetery” →

19th Century · 20th Century · Crystal Palace

A Victorian marvel beneath the streets: Crystal Palace subway

June 25, 2017February 5, 2019 Caroline9 Comments

Part of the A212 road runs along one side of Crystal Palace Park, carrying traffic between the suburbs of south east London. However, beneath a section of the road – unbeknownst to those passing above – is a quite astonishing structure, usually hidden from the public. This is a subway, but not of the concrete, graffiti-ed, dubious-smelling variety more commonly seen beneath Britain’s roads: it is something else altogether.

The entrance to the Crystal Palace subway, usually sealed off

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20th Century · Lydd

Romanov rumours and the lonely grave of a mysterious woman in Kent

June 11, 2017February 5, 2019 Caroline16 Comments

In a corner of a burial ground in the remote marshland town of Lydd in Kent is a lonely grave, set a little apart from the others. It is the final resting place of a a soldier’s wife – there’s nothing particularly out of the ordinary in that, as Lydd is home to a military base, but her unusual name has attracted attention over the years and rumours spread that this mysterious woman may in fact have been a member of the Russian imperial family.

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17th Century · 20th Century · King's Lynn

A 17th Century cottage with an unusual past: the “Exorcist’s House” of King’s Lynn

April 7, 2017February 5, 2019 Caroline6 Comments

The fenland town of King’s Lynn has a long history, and unsurprisingly a few dark tales have been remembered and passed on through generations of townspeople over the years. Once a thriving port and a member of the prestigious medieval Hanseatic League, King’s Lynn (known as Lynn to locals) retains many of its historic buildings. One such building, an unassuming 17th Century cottage huddled close to the churchyard of St Nicholas’ chapel, is known as the “Exorcist’s house.”

The "Exorcist's House", close to the church of St Nicholas — The “Exorcist’s House”, close to the chapel of St Nicholas

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19th Century · 20th Century · West Norwood

Exploring West Norwood’s magnificent Greek Necropolis

August 14, 2016February 5, 2019 Caroline10 Comments

The word “necropolis” is incredibly evocative – it is somehow a far more atmospheric term for a burial ground than “graveyard” or “cemetery.” The word derives from the Ancient Greek term nekropolis (νεκρόπολις), which translates as “city of the dead.” Rather fittingly, given the origins of the term necropolis, today we are visiting the Greek Necropolis, a small but dramatic section of West Norwood Cemetery in south London – a Greek Orthodox cemetery that contains the highest concentration of listed funerary monuments anywhere in Britain.

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