To think it's not weird, creepy or disrespectful to go for a walk around a cemetery

[JuvenileBigfoot]

Told a friend I went for a walk in a local cemetery. She thinks it's creepy and disrespectful. I think it's a nice quet place to take a walk.

Admittedly I also like looking at old headstones, but I feel like reading the names and dates is acknowledging that person's life and is not disrespectful.

The cemetery in question is old, and no longer accepts burials but is open to the public. However, I've also walked around open cemeteries.

What do you think? Creepy ot not?

I tend to steer clear of the newer graves, but otherwise I spend quite a lot of my time exploring graveyards! We have some huge ones here with fascinating old memorials and beautiful peaceful gardens. I think it's the opposite of disrespectful to visit them and appreciate the beauty and tranquility. As long as you're not smoking weed or blasting out music I think your friend is being a numpty. Is she usually professionally offended?

Absolutely fine OP. I love reading gravestones and feel it is respectful to think of people.

We occasionally picnic in the beautiful churchyard in the village where I grew up as my mum and dad, grandparents, aunts and uncles and loads of other people who loved us are there.

If you're talking about Arnos Vale,it's a lovely spot to wander round. Very interesting and so very peaceful. I've not been for a while but really want to go back for a walk and a coffee.

I was thinking Arnos Vale too (am Bristol born and bred).
They do tours there sometimes, where they talk about some of graves and the people there.

No, but unfortunately that's not because of the dead, it's because of the living. Same as I wouldn't walk through a park or a common alone at night.

I live just ''down the road'' about half an hour away by train.I've seen the tours advertised,I keep meaning to book one. One day.

Not at all. Except there’s a man who walks his dog around where my family are buried and he lets it pee against headstones and I think that is disgusting (and tell him so!).

I was walking through my local one in the sunshine yesterday and came across the headstone of 4 children of one family who had all died in the space of 10 months in 1880. Absolutely tragic. I had a little cry and thanked the Heavens for my good fortune.

I find cemeteries very peaceful places and I'm comforted by the thought that the people buried there were remembered and honoured by those close to them.
I used to live opposite an old cemetery and have happy memories of sitting on a bench feeding DD2 whilst DD1 rode her bike quietly up and down the main path away from the graves.

When i was a kid my mum sometimes took me and my sister for a picnic in the churchyard.
A friend's horse used to graze there and lots of people spent time there.

It's very interesting looking at graveyards from different cultures. We had one near our campsite in Luxembourg and we wandered around it in the evening. Very ornate with massive granite slabs.

Some cultures have amazing gravestones with a lot of decorations. New Orleans was fascinating as they were basically all above ground.

We have a nice Victorian one in York.

I also walk around the war graves ones when abroad. We did one in Arnhem recently.

I LOVE walking around cemeteries. They're the weirdo.

If nothing else, they are a good place to remind ourselves of what will eventually happen to us. I read this on a headstone when I was a kid and it never left me:

As you pass by, on me cast your eye
I once was as you are now,
As I am now, you too will be
Prepare, in time, to follow me.

It was on the gravestone of someone who had died in the late 19th C. Sums it up really. Life is short, it's later than you think. Being reminded of that fact never hurts. Enjoy it all while you can.

I quite regularly eat my lunch in Brompton Cemetary. It's beautiful and peacefull. I see lots of other people eating their lunch, relaxing and strolling. It's not disrespectful at all.

Not weird at all.

A cemetery in a nearby city is the most amazing place. Absolutely stunning gravestones (big and posh with statues) and so peaceful despite being in the middle of a big city.

It's fine, and if it's a very old graveyard it's a piece of history. I always find it sad the high infant mortality rate in previous centuries, and give a little silent prayer for the little children xx

Some people might find it creepy but I think it's really peaceful, and interesting thinking about the people buried there. I guess I wouldn't want to walk around a new cemetery, where the headstones were all recently deceased. I guess I'd feel weird or a bit disrespectful if the bereaved people were there and it was not long ago. Plus it wouldn't have the history and nature you get in old cemeteries. There's some old graves in our local churchyard and kids all play there, people walk their dogs, have picnics.

I think it’s a really respectful thing to read the headstones that were paid for by bereaved family members because they wanted the world know that the person buried there was loved and important to someone.

I was taking a stroll in Abney Park cemetery once and found a nice clearing with a bench and so I sat there a while. A middle aged Turkish man sat down and made conversation about his past lives as a tailor and taxi driver.
Then he asked me to come back to his place for a shag and told me he liked to lick...
I left very swiftly.
Goodness knows what goes on in that place at night.
Some really cool stone angels, mausoleums etc

As long as you don't stand on the graves or sit and have a picnic I don't see a problem.

I used to do my 5k runs in my local one. I'd stop to tidy up a fallen flower vase or plant pot now and then too.

Cemeteries are lovely places

I love it. Whenever I used to visit a place - for any reason - I would look at the Cathedral if there was one, and take a slow quiet walk round the local cemetery, might even have my picnic lunch if I were alone.

I remember the time I went to stay with an aunt with a friend of mine, and we went to a local church bazaar, bought old leather bound poetry books and then went and read them to each other in the tiny village cemetery. (I was only about 15, so forgive me!)

Yes! Nutkins!
https://royalparks.org.uk/susannah-nutkins-1816-1906

I do this a lot! I hope it’s not creepy I think it’s peaceful

I go for a walk around a large cemetery near where I work almost every lunchtime, half an hour route or so. I never thought of it as disrespectful - it’s peaceful, beautiful trees lovely and cool in the summertime, and I like to sit on a bench and have a moment. It’s a lovely Victorian one, full of beautiful statues and ornate displays. I love it there and I don’t think any of the residents mind my intrusion in the slightest.