Secret spaces 2

One of the silver linings in the cloud of the coronavirus lockdown has been the opportunity necessity to explore some of the hidden paths in my local area. One such walk took me along a track at the back of some houses and through a wood, before pitching me into an old and overgrown cemetery belonging to St Paul's Church in Shipley. The church itself has a graveyard around it but at some point around the turn of the 19th century it must have become overcrowded. An overspill cemetery was established a mile or so away in Nab Wood. Nowadays this area is rarely visited and, I think, is no longer used for burials. It sits next door to but is separate from the current municipal crematorium and cemetery. Most of its graves date from the early 20th century. There's been some recent attempt to tidy it up a bit. (Last time I tried to explore several years ago it was almost impassable.) It's still dark and overgrown and many of the graves are damaged. It is, however, wonderfully atmospheric.

The picture below was a bit of an accident, in that I'd jiggled one of the settings on my camera by mistake so that it applied a retro filter effect to the image - but I decided that it had worked out quite well for the subject matter.

See saw?

I spotted this gravestone in Bingley Cemetery. I know I shouldn't laugh... but I did. Humour is so important in these precarious times. I don't know what Marjorie's maiden name was but maybe she should have retained it?
Now I've got the nursery rhyme in my head!

Bingley Cemetery

One of my friends mentioned how peaceful and attractive the main cemetery in Bingley is. I'd never been before but I decided I'd have a walk there and it was lovely. I've said before how much I enjoy exploring graveyards, probably because I grew up next door to one. I loved playing there and watching the wildlife that lived there. I don't find them macabre places at all, and Bingley's is especially beautiful. It is set on a hillside on the edge of town. I was fortunate to visit when the winter heathers were in bloom, as someone has filled many of the older graves with plants and they looked wonderful.

There are a number of war graves. The one below is that of Thomas Whitley, an 18 year old RAF cadet from Cottingley Bridge, who was killed in action just three months before the end of the First World War.

There is plenty of Victorian statuary, several angels (see yesterday) and some rather impressive monuments like the soaring, slender one below. 

 If I was to have a grave (which I won't), I'd be very happy to have it filled with daffodils.

Sadly, Bingley Cemetery is also known as the place where the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, once worked as a grave digger. He claimed it was here that he first heard the voices that told him to go and kill prostitutes. Tragically he went on to murder at least 13 women in Yorkshire and attempted to murder another seven. It was a terrible period (late 1970s) in the history of this part of the world. I was a student in Bradford at the time and used to get very scared walking home on my own after dark.

Entertaining angels

'Be not forgetful to entertain strangers:

for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.'

Hebrews 13: 1-2

I found all these on a recent wander around Bingley Cemetery, a beautiful and peaceful place. I love the character in the angels' faces.

I especially like the one above, she looks like a super hero.

We may not be able to 'entertain strangers' face to face right now, but there are still ways of extending hospitality and encouragement. Let us all be angels - and sunshine!

Garton on the Wolds church

I was on my way to the East Coast last month (more of that later) and, on a friend's recommendation, I stopped off to visit the ancient church at Garton on the Wolds. The Church of St Michael and All Angels, to give it its full title, was originally built in medieval times about 1132, for the prior of Kirkham Abbey (which I visited in 2017, see HERE). By the early 19th century it was very dilapidated and was extensively rebuilt and restored in the second half of the 19th century. However, its real treasures are inside. Come back tomorrow!

Mooching around the large graveyard, I came across a pretty little angel on one of the headstones.

The bleeding yew and other treasures

Wales: Like many of our old churchyards, Nevern Church has an avenue of ancient yew trees, some 700 years old, leading from the gate to the church door. One of these trees is famous as 'the bleeding yew', something I've never seen before. Where a limb has been sawn off, the tree 'bleeds' with a deep red sap, the colour and consistency of blood. It has been bleeding for as long as anyone can remember and no-one really knows why. Myths and legends abound, but perhaps the most obvious of them is that it is bleeding in sympathy with Jesus as he died on the cross. 

Within the church, set into the windowsills, are more ancient treasures - a beautiful Celtic braided cross dating back to the 10th century:

and another stone, known as the Maglocunus Stone, dated to the 5th century. It is inscribed in Latin (which you can just about see along the wavy edge at the back) and in Ogham, a curious early medieval script consisting of marks and slashes, which you can see along the edge below.

St Brynach's Church

Wales: St Brynach's Church in Nevern was founded in the Celtic period in 540AD. By the 10th century, it became an important stopping place for pilgrims en route to St David's in the south-west corner of Wales.  You can still see an ancient pilgrim cross, hewn out of rock on the hillside above the village, and an indent in the rock worn away by the feet or knees of pilgrims stopping at the cross.

There is a very interesting history of the church on its website HERE. One of its treasures is the beautiful, carved Celtic cross standing in the churchyard (see below), which dates to the 10th century. There is also a standing stone known as the Vitalianus Stone, dating from around 500 AD and inscribed in Latin and an ancient script called Ogham.

I find old graveyards fascinating and was touched by the memorial stone below, beautifully inscribed. It says: Here lieth the body of Elinor Salmon, the daughter of John Salmon of this parish, who departed this life the 20th day of July 1781 aged 26 years. Afflictions fore long time I bore. Physicians were in vain. Til God did please Death should me seize to ease me of my pain. How sad...

Most of the interior of the church was remodelled by the Victorians in the 1860s, and there is a pretty, modern, stained glass memorial window inserted in 2005. The nave and chancel don't seem to line up and I learned from a post of John's (HERE) that is sometimes deliberate. The nave represents the body of Christ and the side transepts the arms of the cross, so the chancel (his head) may be tilted. In this case it seems to tilt slightly to the right. Or maybe the builders just had wonky plans... 

My angel

I returned from a recent walk via the local Nab Wood cemetery, and just had to stop to say hello to my favourite angel, she of the broken wing and pretty face. I like cemeteries. It perhaps has to do with the fact that my childhood home was right next door to one and playing among the ancient graves held no fears. It was a place of tranquillity, beauty and abundant wildlife. A family place too, where I could stop by and have 'conversations' with my grandfather and grandmother, both buried there. Their grave had a utilitarian square headstone, no fancy angels - and I'll be cremated when my time comes, so no angels for me either. But there is something about this one that really appeals to me. At her feet it says: 'A tribute of love'. Very sweet. 'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all', I guess, as Tennyson famously said in his poem 'In Memoriam A.H.H.'

In memory of...

These artistic engravings on mid-Victorian tombstones caught my eye. They're in the churchyard at St Paul's, Shipley, where most of the gravestones have been lifted and used as paths or propped against walls, to enable the grass in the churchyard to be mown easily. They all say the same thing and yet each is unique.

It seemed as good a photo as any to commemorate what is known as Good Friday, though that always seems a bit of a misnomer for what the day signifies. There will be the usual Good Friday March of Witness by the Christian churches in Shipley but that's a quiet, 'undressed' thing. I often feel we should make more of Easter. It seems to need the kind of ceremony you see in some Catholic countries: flags, icons, robes. Last year Shipley held a Passion Play but that needs an awful lot of work and it is not being repeated this year.

These days it seems that the Easter bunny and chocolate triumphs, and I'm never sure what children understand by that... After all, bunnies don't lay eggs!

Here lies....

Among those buried in Highgate West Cemetery are:


The painter, Lucian Freud [1922-2011], (whose work I recently mentioned in my post about art at Chatsworth House). He is the grandson of the famous psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud.



















The author, Dame Beryl Bainbridge [1932-2010], whose work, which includes 'The Bottle Factory Outing', I confess I have never read.

George Wombwell [1777-1850] who was a famous menagerie owner, travelling the country with a variety of animals that he charged the visiting public to see. The sleeping lion on his grave reminded me a bit of the lion called Peace, in Saltaire. In fact it is Nero, Mr Wombwell's docile pet. He entered it into a lion-baiting contest with six bulldogs but Nero refused to fight.
















Tom Sayers [1826-1865], who was a bare-knuckle prize fighter. He lost only one of his sixteen prize fights. He seems famous solely because of his last fight, in 1860, against the US champion Heenan. He dislocated his shoulder but fought on one-handed, almost blinding Heenan. After more than forty rounds the match was declared a draw after the ring was invaded by the public and police had to break up the ensuing melée. Shortly after this , boxing as a sport became regulated under the Queensberry Rules.  His grave is guarded by his mastiff dog, Lion, who was the chief mourner at his elaborate funeral to which 100,000 people turned up!

Highgate West Cemetery

Another week of retirement... another little holiday. Aren't I fortunate? This time I was staying with a friend in London. It's good having a knowledgeable guide and we explored all sorts of interesting places. I've been to Highgate Cemetery before but never the West Cemetery, which can be visited only as part of a guided tour. It was the first area of the cemetery to be developed, in Victorian times, when burial space in London's churchyards was becoming overcrowded and insanitary. Opened in 1839 by a private company, it was landscaped with features designed to provide a prestigious resting place for wealthy Victorians for whom elaborate funerals were considered a necessity. There are many family mausoleums. Unfortunately, space here too started to run out though, ironically, many of the mausoleums are under-utilised. It became difficult to trace surviving family members, who were supposed to maintain them. The cemetery became unprofitable in the 1970s and was left to vandals and nature. In 1975, a group of concerned 'Friends' started to try to reverse the damage and they continue to battle to keep nature at bay, repair the monuments, respect those buried there and retain the original spirit of the place. Burials there are still allowed. It has quite an atmosphere and the tour was fascinating. 

Broken wing

'Looking for an angel with a broken wing...' (Jimmy Page)

There is just one angel (or one that I have been able to find) in my local cemetery in Nab Wood. I do, however, think she is one of the most beautiful I have ever seen, with such a sweet and sad face. I went back to photograph her again, having not been there since 2011 (see here). It seems she has crumbled a little bit more, although I think she's had a broken wing for a long time. I like her so much that I had my earlier photo printed and framed and she hangs on my wall.

Remembrance - For the Fallen

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old.
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

'For the Fallen'
1914 - Robert Laurence Binyon 

Tyne Cot war cemetery

Tyne Cot is one of the largest British and Commonwealth burial grounds in Belgium for the dead of WWI. It also has a memorial wall listing the names of some of the missing, those whose remains have never been found. Some of the gravestones themselves are carved with names but many, many of them are simply inscribed 'A Soldier of the Great War. Known unto God'.

The cemetery is a strangely peaceful place, despite the many visitors. It continues to be beautifully looked after by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. I was glad to have seen it when the roses were blooming. The gashes of red against the white stone seemed an evocative symbol.

A churchyard in spring

Turning left at the top of the Radical Steps, a short stroll brings you into the churchyard of Kirby Lonsdale's parish church, St Mary's. I imagine it must be at its prettiest right now in early spring, with random sweeps of daffodils and crocuses among the gravestones.

The church (which I didn't have time to explore inside) has Norman origins, evidenced by the rounded arches. This doorway in the base of the tower appears to be Norman but has been subjected to some (not particularly sympathetic) restoration at some point. I really like the variety of colours in the stonework.

Rest awhile

What a lovely place to sit and eat my packed lunch... (and later I retired to the pub in Arncliffe, where they still serve ale out of jugs.) Someone has thoughtfully placed a memorial bench in the churchyard, overlooking the River Skirfare and the bridge. It was so peaceful, enjoying the spring yellow of the daffodils and the celandines and watching little birds busily collecting nesting material. Some of the gravestones are covered in thick lichen but many are still readable. I was touched by those you see nestled together on the left of the photo. One is the grave of a three-year-old boy who died in 1936. Almost touching it is another stone, that of his mother Jane who died in 1996 aged 81. Her husband, John, and possibly another son and daughter, who both died in their 40s/50s, are buried a few yards away. Jane appears to have outlived them all.

Heaton Graveyard Community Project

Heaton Graveyard is situated right at the centre of the village, accessed from Highgate. It was owned by Heaton Baptist Chapel, dates back to 1824 and was used for burials right up until 2007. It's not very big (one acre) but there are at least 8630 people recorded as interred there, in 1100 graves that range from those with simple gravestones to very grand Victorian monuments. There are also several thousand paupers and their children buried there in unmarked communal graves, with no records kept.

Like many similar small cemeteries, the graveyard fell into disrepair and became overgrown.  In 2003, a group of volunteers decided to tidy it up and they have over the years returned it to a beautiful, peaceful place of rest and remembrance, a haven of flowers and wildlife. It really is a little jewel.