For those that don’t know, signs like these on British roads indicate one can drive at the ‘national speed limit’, which is no less than 60mph. Anyone doing so on this road, however, may as well presume to end up in the cemetery to which it leads, visible over there on the sea shore. Perhaps the road traffic planners of Stromness, Orkney, have a morbid sense of humour. Or perhaps my using of this photo suggests that it’s just me.
I wasn’t flying from Cape Town back home, in case you were wondering, but instead to St Helena, for my fourth visit. Who can ever say these things for sure, but it’s possibly my last — put it this way, it’s the last, for now, for which I have the money, or rather, for which someone else has given me the money, in this case the British Academy (to whom thanks are due).
Whomever resides in this particular spot these days has definitely made their last visit to this remote little island, though. There are worse places to spend eternity.
One wonders if the social and economic landscape of St Helena would be different had it been run more often in its history by St Helenians. In the centuries since it was formally colonised, only two of the many Governors have been born on the island, and it’s perhaps significant that one of these, Hudson Janisch gets himself by far the most impressive memorial of any Governor. On the lowest level of this three-tier stone (not pictured) is inscribed: “This monument is erected by the inhabitants to commemorate the high respect and esteem in which their late Governor was universally held.” As a memorial, that’s pretty good, I think.
Snow was forecast and duly arrived, though it was hardly a winter apocalypse. It did make the town look good, though. This graveyard sits on the hillside across the valley from my house: it takes a long zoom to pick it out in a photo and, usually it’s all rather brown and unprominent. But I like the way the snow picks out the headstones, like rim-light, almost.
A lush scene for Christmas Eve, particularly after yesterday. The cemetery on top of Balgay Hill in Dundee was a real discovery of the day. Just one of its memorial stones is pictured here but this is a huge necropolis, backed by the Firth of Tay, the hills on the far side of which are just visible here. A very un-Decemberish shot, but that’s why I’ve picked it. For tomorrow, Happy Christmas…
On the hill of Montjuïc, which rises between Barcelona’s city centre and the port, there is the site of the 1992 Olympics, much of it feeling rather neglected these days. When we first saw this place my initial thought was that it was something to do with the Olympic village, rows of concrete blocks with what seemed like dark windows in them, all looking strangely moody. Closer inspection revealed why: in fact they were these mausoleums, piled on top of each other like apartments arranged into streets and avenues, with stepladders here and there so families can reach the highest. I’ve never seen anything quite like this before except, to some extent, at Novodevichy in Moscow, but even that doesn’t quite reach this level of stacking.
Barking is one of the least gentrified bits of London, not that that is a bad thing. It also gives extremely good graveyard, as I discovered when getting away from the traffic noise and finding myself in the huge necropolis that is Rippleside cemetery, seeming to stretch away for miles, a vast city of memorials to those who have ‘passed on’ and ‘fallen asleep’. Or, here with the three members of the Sanderson family, taken out by (I assume) German bombers one night in January 1941.
St. Bartholomew’s Church in Ripponden is a fine looking building in its way, and its graveyard an atmospheric and photogenic spot — but someone really needs to cut the grass.
This little graveyard perches on the hillside, across the valley from my house. With a powerful enough pair of binoculars, it might even be possible to see this diorama from our bedroom window. But until today, it had gone unseen. There’s nothing else to do but explore these nearby hidden corners.
It’s my birthday tomorrow, meaning today’s post marks the end of a ninth complete year of this blog. Am I feeling morbid? Not particularly, I just thought this grave (in Bunhill Fields, London) was kinda cute actually. The hair is getting greyer but I am still an old Goth at heart.
Being 42 