Isn’t a walk around an old cemetery fascinating?

[CormoranStrike]

Today I found two amazing names - a man called Pelham Brodie and a woman called Dalmeny Edmonstone Black - plus a confederate soldier who died leading his men in battle in Kentucky and a naval officer who survived being ice-locked in his ship for two years and who died with his crew when they attempted to walk to Canada to escape.

All this in Edinburgh!

I live near a lovely old cemetery, I;m always struck how tiny the adult tombs are.

I do get slightly worried about the zombie apocalypse though, and keep a sharp eye out for anyone shambling rather than walking.

I got a shock when I visited a cemetery whilst on holiday. The first gravestone I saw had my full name on it!

I recently spent an afternoon at the graves of my Grand- and Great-Grandparents.

In the corner of the cemetery I spotted this simulacra.

I've decided he's an ent-like cemetery guardian. He wouldn't stand for any zombie apocalypse nonsense.

I’ve been meaning to go to Highgate I have relatives buried there.

I love an old cemetery too, we visited Pere Lachaise in Paris and it was beautiful and interesting. Our local churchyard used to have a really old gravestone with skull and crossbones on, which we always thought was a pirate's grave when we were kids. There was a legend that if you ran round the grave three times and threw a stone at the church, the pirate would appear. After the windows of the church started to get smashed by stray stones, the vicar removed the head stone.

I asked the current vicar about it a couple of years ago and she said that it was actually plague dead that were buried there rather than pirates, and the stone is still in the church yard, just face down and overgrown in a different part.

Our local churchyard contains the grave of a small boy who died after running into the road and falling under the horses of the mail coach. Whenever I see it, I think how life repeats itself in that children and motor vehicle accidents continue to happen.
Through the generations families who will never know one another have the link of being reunited in similar grief.

In a out of the way village in Staffordshire lies an ancestor of mine. A poor spinster, her startling death is recorded on her headstone 'Here lies Jane B, struck by lightning and killed crossing Nether Field.'

AndNoneForGretchenWieners Has the stone been moved far? Was it in the middle of a large plot previously, or just commemorative?

My ancestors lived and died in the same small area for 300 years. There’s not a single gravestone with our name as they were all poor labourers’ families. The church records show how many children in a family died within a few days from infectious diseases and the many young wives who died in childbirth.

I visited a cemetery in Bermuda, it was in two separate sections with part of the dividing wall removed. One part of the cemetery was full of white people's graves, the other part was full of black people's graves and when abolition came, part of the dividing wall was removed.

Went to my local church for the first time (was geocaching).

First gravestone I saw - has my name on it! Common first name but very unusual surname.

Yes, Dean cemetery - lovely place actually.

Parkhead The Eastern Necropolis is fab! There is a charity called Friends of the Necropolis who do free tours (charitable donations are welcomed which go towards maintenance and restoration of the graves and tombs) and some of the stories they tell about the "residents" and local history are fascinating. Beautiful views of the city right from the top too.

I often walk around our local one which is enormous, early Victorian and built on the side of a very steep wooded hill. As it's so steep a lot of the gravestones have tumbled over and/or been totally overtaken by brambles. They work to clean a lot of it up but it's a vast site to maintain. That always makes me feel a bit sad, that they're 'forgotten'. I also get anxious going round with DS, although he loves it, in case one topples on him! (I remember a news story of a toddler playing hide and seek in a graveyard that died this way and it's stuck with me ever since.) But - beautiful and fascinating place.

This is an example of one of the overgrown areas in a flatter section

Greyfriars in Edinburgh is amazing - bars to keep the grave robbers out! Also Pere Lachaise and Montparnasse in Paris. Stunning...

I love walking around old Graveyards. For me it gives me a sense of gratitude, especially when I see a full young family, with the children dying in succesion.

I wish anti-vaxers would walk around them, (or go to developing countries) to realise that 'big pharma' didn't invent premature death.

Love a good graveyard wander. I always think that people would love to know that centuries later were fascinated by them. I always end up looking at graves where families seem to have been wiped out It's sad to see. I have lovely internal conversations. "Oh Margaret, you little minx. Outlived your husband by 40 years and remarried a few times" I'm aware I need to get out more

One in my hometown had me sobbing buckets. A little girl aged 5 who had been adopted, the adoptive parents died soon after, late 1800s. There’s lots of children buried there but that one really got to me

This is in my local graveyard. It breaks my heart when I see it and makes me so thankful for all I have.

Joseph (died aged 5 years and 7 months), Joseph Henry (died aged 5 years and 6 months), Thomas (died aged 5 years and 4 months), Ebenezer (died aged 1 year and 4 months), Mary Ann (died aged 15 years and 1 month),
Rachel ( died aged 3 years and 8 months) and Fanny (died 2 years and 4 months) were the seven children of Thomas and Esther Perry.

I love cemeteries,I can spend a good couple of hours in the one up the road from me,where my grandparents are buried.
Arnos Vale cemetery in Bristol is a lovey place to visit,I might have to pop up there soon,I haven't been for a while.

Greenock Cemetery, which is about 30 miles West of Glasgow is allegedly the biggest in Europe.
It is fascinating walking round it.

I love wandering around old graveyards. So much noisy history in a quiet setting.

@ContadoraExplorer
I never know that. It's been years since I've visited Necropolis. Glasgow is full of fab places to visit.

I spend lots of time in cemeteries, every single one has interesting stories.

One was pointed out to me as having 4 war graves from one family in one plot, it was actually only one, two buried abroad and one lost at sea. But the three others had all been memorialised in the same place the first was buried.

It struck me as a rather beautiful thing to decide to do.

I've read a lot of headstones and when younger I'd recall the oldest and eldest person buried there. Both ends of the age spectrum would make me cry. Dh thinks I'm odd when I said I like to wander around a cemetery but like is the wrong word isn't it? I've always been respectful though.
Last year a friend and I went to a place in Cambridge where a tv programme is filmed at the church and some of the inscriptions were heartbreaking. Such young children.