meet you at the cemetery gates

Time for more MORBID DETH!

The day after All Stitched Up, some friends and I went to the Nunhead Cemetery open day. Nunhead is one of London's Magnificent Seven, the huge graveyards that were built across the city in the middle of the 19th century. It's a sprawling green wilderness with ivy and nettles crawling all over the gravestones, although some parts of it have been cleaned up.

We spent a fun hour or so there trying to find stone angels, and interesting names on the gravestones. My favourite name was Abel Staite, which seemed like a heck of a name to live up to (it works better if you say it out loud). We only found one foreign name, though, for the Jabez family.

The other interesting thing we found was a monument to the Scottish Martyrs, who were transported to Australia for advocating parliamentary reform (you can read a bit about it here). It was quite interesting to see it so soon after the general election, given how much people were asking for parliementary reform that week.

"The experience of all ages should have taught our rulers that persecution can never efface principles."
"Individuals may perish but truth is eternal."

Nunhead has an open day once a year, and is worth a visit. More pics here.