Highgate Cemetery Walk
I'm really enjoying this week of no work, I don't miss it one bit! LOL
Today we went to visit Highgate Cemetery. It's just a short bus ride and walk away but I had never been there before even though I had been interested in visiting for years.
As we approached the cemetery, walking up Swains Lane we saw many old long forgotten graves through the fence, almost lost in the long grass and ivy.
We were only able to visit the East Cemetery as the West side is only open at certain times and for guided tours only.
A lot of the cemetery is very overgrown, you might think unkempt but in fact it's beautiful, natural and perfectly peaceful.
Some of the graves are very old, just about ruins, and yes a lot of them have obviously not been at all cared for, maybe there is no one left to care in their family.
I found the place fascinating and very thought provoking.
We saw a couple of famous graves, that of Karl Marx and the writer Douglas Adams. I'm sure there are more well known people there, I just don't know of them myself!
After we left the cemetery we bought some sandwiches and snacks and sat in Parliament Hill Fields, which is part of Hampstead Heath. It's so green and lush and being a weekday there weren't too many people around so it was wonderfully peaceful. The view of London from the top of the hill is stunning, it's amazing! You can see as far away as Canary Wharf, The Gherkin, St Paul's Cathedral etc..
From Hampstead Heath we walked all the way home, it's not far on the bus but on foot it was rather a long way. My feet need a rest tomorrow, rain is forecast so maybe it will be a good day for a rest!
Of course I took loads of photo's and if you are interested I think they are well worth a look through!
Cemetery Photos
Parliament Hill
8 Shared some thoughts:
I am tagging you with a meme! x
http://www.mummydiariesblog.com/2008/05/little-piece-of-my-life-meme.html
I think I would have enjoyed that too. The pictures really captured the quiet beauty and tranquility of the place. Very nice!
I find old cemetaries fascinating!
I'm glad you are having a good weekend. It's supposed to be 80-90 degrees in Seattle this weekend.
Beth
Highgate and its environs are my favourite haunts, not least because so many great poets have made it theirs. There is a genius loci that seems to pervade the areas. Here is my own poetic tribute to Parliament Hill Fields
Where's Parnassus Hill?
Proud I halt upon Parnassus Hill
and swiftly now my Muse inspires my quill
To one whose smile's precipitately versed
though Dunce the second reigns like Dunce the first
(My comic version of a verse of Pope
it's only trivial she won't mind I hope)
Blue-stockinged one of all pervasive power
there for your poet in his lonely hour
Could I convey a little sense of time
time which is always constant like my rhyme
Is now, a neat one here a half one there
palatable impenetrable, hitch-itched air
Your moon hides its face behind a veil of cloud
your trees know where we went and what we did
There is a battle between love and duty
words fail before your ever-blinding beauty
Blue is the colour of the day when dawn
so many times, I, out of habit, yawn
How shall I tell you at this time of day
I've not said everything I wished to say
We cease to love because we cease to give
but go on living for we have to live
Another Time - Another time, my dear
not now no baby, no not here
My Muse like Pope's is my best friend, not wife
eases me through his long Disease, my Life
She sums it all up in a verse, a line
fills an ocean in my glass of wine
Time has revived her for my heart again
replugged and soignéd for my poet's pen
I grin and brood on when she spoke last night
she mesmerised us all she was so bright
Somebody said that she was beautiful
me? Just a smile and "Thank You" I was full
Of glee and proud of her this first time giving
a lecture) thought it obvious and said nothing
Third time lucky now poetic pen
sets off to mooted Hampstead Heath again
Too many people saying "SORRY" bound
for daily travel on the underground
Nearer or nearly half-way there I rhyme
and disagree with him agree with him
Eyes watering like Betjeman's O tired
Hampstead where Keats and Coleridge were inspired
And Hampstead Heath where all the buses meet
and people passing might say "There's a poet"
I won't graffiti: ORAL, CUNT, DEMOLISH
the poofies do that 'cause they need the cash
The sun beams down on little ponds, oh look
how twinkling waters such meanders make
St. Paul's is now by giant monsters dwarfed
the Dunces find themselves Canary Wharf-ed
Onerously zizzy, busy, bold, and blind
crowning the scene once and now hard to find
O masked evaders of this doomed abode
Guy Fawkes will not see Westminster explode
Malignant, sassy, O irreverent city
of class-forced perpendicularity
Behind me dogs, unbarking, play kiss-chase
this Constable would paint and think it ace
You sad people that don't give a damn
"You're not a poet" no, I think I am
"What are the antonyms of Fuck and Bitch?"
I do not know them and I am not rich
Unlucky junkies you, O happy grief
chance upon eating up some mad-cow beef
Kinkiest of all the rhymers I am still
TXT-ing Olivia from this poet's hill
O pleasure lovers! Little hands’ll mock
Your paradise into a laughingstock
May in the dying embers of these days
Bridget come out for to approve my lays
© Rehan Qayoom, 2002.
I was wondering about photos and then I saw the link to them. I love old cemeteries. Off to go have a look at them now.
Wow, love the tombstones! Their was a real interesting one about (I think the name was Priest) who was the inventor of Kinemotagrahy? (not sure if I remember right). However you are an awesome photographer
I'm sadly ignorant about London :( I have heard about Highgate Cemetery of course but had no idea what it was like. Beautiful! Great pictures of both places :)
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