I seem to migrate to graveyards. In Paris I lived a short walk from Père Lachaise- resting place of Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde and Edith Piaf. In Brighton I spent a summer living next to a beautifully manicured graveyard, and here in Stokey I live next to Abney Park Cemetery.
This one is a Victorian Gothic graveyard. Steeped in history and mature woodland it occupies a hidden, bigger space than you expect and is the first nondenominational garden cemetery in Europe. It has become one of my favourite places to while away a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon. The grave stones date back to as early as the 1800s and, although faded and overgrown, most can still be read.
Somehow I find it a very comforting place. Perhaps it appeals to a slightly morbid vein of mine, or perhaps it has more to do with my vain fear that once I’m gone there will be no trace. In cemeteries at least, I see traces of people everywhere- just as here on a screen I try and leave traces too.
A fitting sense of anarchy purveys; nonconformists and dissenters were buried here- there’s no room for thrills, nature has well and truly taken over. In the centre of the park sits the Abney Park Chapel (1840), a grade II listed building, derelict and fierce with demanding gothic towers.
I think a graveyard is the perfect ice breaker, Abney Park is anyway. Sometimes I go on my own. Sometimes I go with old favourite Manorites. Today I went with a new friend and explored.
I won’t delve into the history now, I’ve had a couple of glasses of wine and I wouldn’t do it justice anyway. But my, as yet superficial, research (Wikipedia) tells me that: “Abney Park was unique in being the first arboretum to be combined with a cemetery in Europe.” Which I think is quite cool. As is this: “Aaron Buzacott, the second Secretary of Anti-Slavery International, originally known as the Anti-Slavery Society is buried here.” As is, “Thomas Caulker, the son of the King of Bompey (now Sierra Leone) who signed an anti-slavery agreement that became included in a British Act of Parliament in the 1850s.”
You may well not be too bothered by what’s been before, preferring to look to today and the future. But I find this place helps you do just that; a welcome respite from any December blues, sobering yet life affirming.
