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?

Halloween? Yes. In the dark? No, if I was by myself because of safety issues not graves. With someone else? Wouldn't worry me.

There's walking tours around Southern Cemetery here in Manchester. It's one of the biggest in Europe Fascinating insights into the cities history. I love graveyards. I'd always be respectful of course.

Found this (among others):

"BEATRIX Potter's world-famous cast list has been found on headstones in a London graveyard, writes Karen Barden, Peter Rabbett, Mr McGregor, Jeremiah Fisher, Mr Nutkins, Mr Brock and even Mr Tod are all buried at Brompton Cemetery, near to where the author lived from 1866 to 1913.
Chairman of the Beatrix Potter Society Judy Taylor said although there was no recorded evidence linking the characters' names to tombstones, it could well have been the case.

Now I know I didn't invent it!

https://www.thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk/news/6936235.grave-inspiration-to-beatrix-potter/

I did the tour of Highgate this year, it’s fascinating. One of the best things to do in London

Not disrespectful at all, I only find it disrespectful when people decide to use it as part of a dog walk.

Ha! I was about to post about this. I was on one of those tours once and we were taken to the grave of a well known Manc who was associated with a particular musical genre. It’s absolutely HUGE!

Our local church graveyard (which is still in use) has a footpath cutting through it. The old Clifton one I played in as a child was the same with path right through the middle. People take dogs through all the time.

Our local grave yard has 3 paths to get to one end to the other, people use it to walk kids to school and dogs through which is fine but what I do find disrespectful is when off lead dogs are running around weeing on graves, doing poos and having balls thrown for them causing them to run all over the graves. For that kind of use a field should be found instead

Yes it is disrespectful to let dogs off there @Coconutter24 - ugh.

We've got the anniversary of a death coming up where a group of us are going to meet at the grave and it would be incredibly upsetting to find it had been used as a dog loo.

Walk my dog round our local cemetery every day. If I zigzag the paths I can get 5 miles out of it. You get to know the other dogwalkers too.
I did my a level revision in there many years ago.
I'm in my 50s now and sadly am getting to the age where I recognise more and more names on the headstones.

I do this, i find it lovely and calming, also humbling - if not sometimes a tad spooky.🤣
however I like to read graves and feel like I’m remembering people long forgotten( speak their names and imagine their lives and wot not ) and how that it might be quite a nice thing to do for those I notice .. .
Take your friend see if you can win her over.

I'm a genealogist. I spend a lot of time mooching around old graveyards.

No not at all
Only disrespectful if you take a dog.
Went to one at whitby recently and people had let their dogs shit on graves. I find that disrespectful.

Of course it isn't creepy or disrespectful. The people buried under the old tombstones will have died so long ago that no living person remembers them, even if they have living relatives. Isn't it lovely that someone is reading their names, maybe even saying them out loud?

Yes, Arnos Vale. They even had an Easter Hunt for children the week before our last visit

I love wandering around Arnos Vale in Bristol.

Utterly amazing place. You can get guided tours by volunteers who have researched the life stories of some of the people buried there. It's fascinating social history.

your friend is the odd one here.

im often drawn to cemeteries. I parked up once for a football game and it was opposite one. I walked in and round the corner they had all the passed children in one area (old gravestones) I found that sad yet comforting as they had other children around them.

im fascinated by cemetries.

Not creepy at all, don’t let your friend put you off!

We started walking as a family around our local old cemetery during lockdown, it was less busy than the parks and the kids found it fascinating to read the stones and go exploring in the wooded section (self-seeded trees all overgrown). It’s on a hill so there are great views of the city and beyond too.

There’s a lovely book called Tomb with a View by Peter Ross that delves into the stories of some interesting cemeteries as well as individual grave stones. It includes several of the ones mentioned by other posters (Highgate, Brompton, Bristol). Lots of moving stories and really life affirming rather than morbid.

https://www.waterstones.com/book/a-tomb-with-a-view-the-stories-and-glories-of-graveyards/peter-ross/9781472267788

Of course not.
Walking actually on the grave is disrespectful though.

This is one of my favourite things to do x

A country churchyard on a warm day, with birdsong and bees humming, can be a wonderful place to be.

A cemetery is a lovely peaceful place for a stroll. Like you, I also enjoy reading all the old stones, and some are really interesting!

A very memorable one that sticks in my mind was in Wales - might have been Newtown - was in a random church yard, and was for a 9yo boy who "died at his desk" at school!
Another was for a mother and quads(!!) in the 1800s!

I love visiting old cemeteries, particularly like reading the headstones and I have a photo album of black and white photos I took of particularly grand Victorian graveside memorials.

In Mexico, they celebrate Day of the Dead on November 2nd and they celebrate the dead. Some people have a family gathering by the family plot in the cemetery. Where they tell stories about their deceased relatives.

BloomingWisteria I am so very sorry about your darling little girl. That’s such a disrespectful attitude by the dog owner. Even if poo is picked up, cemeteries are people’s resting places, and those who are visiting their loved ones, shouldn’t have to see dogs using the areas around graves as toilets.