Visiting a graveyard for enjoyment is not everyone's cup of tea. But tombstone tourists - or "taphophiles" - are increasingly to be found wandering through cemeteries, examining headstones, and generally enjoying the sombre atmosphere. What is the appeal? Finding the plot: England's tombstone tourists - BBC News
Having been dragged round cemeteries by my parents as a kid, I still like shambling around them, especially if they're a bit overgrown and crumbly. One of my favourite books, heartily recommended to anyone who enjoys such things: The English Way of Death: The Common Funeral Since 1450: Amazon.co.uk: Julian Litten: 9780709070979: Books Well worth a shufti if slightly morbid things make you smile...
Graveyard Detective is good on this stuff: graveyarddetective (@gravedetective) | Twitter Blog: graveyarddetective (@gravedetective) | Twitter There's a current movement to tidy up old cemeteries, beyond the thankfully now rather more restrained vandalism of a few years back that was unfairly blamed on Health & Safety. I applaud the civic effort to an extent, but it sometimes sanitises things a bit much. Bit like the complete restorations of pre CWGC VC graves etc. to shining white freshness and how that often makes me a tad uncomfortable. Cutting back brambles and giving things a bit of a scrub, yeah, maybe, but total restoration can remove all 'character'. A denial of decay & time, leaving a pastiche. (Having mentioned CWGC... I do think they're 'different'. A promise of pristine regimentation was made, and is being kept there.)
I do not hold a morbid curiosity for graveyards but I have always wandered around old village grave yards on my travels and always found them to be nice quiet places to contemplate. Regards Tom
So I can tell the mother-in-law I am a taphophile not the weird son-in-law that she calls me for ratching around cemetery's.
With a grandfather and great-grandfather who were monumental stone masons I was taken to visit various churchyards and cemeteries as a young child often to visit and tend the graves of deceased relatives. I suppose taking an interest in headstones is in my genetic make-up! For the close families and friends of loved ones who had died the memorials and headstones in churchyards and cemeteries often tended to be a place of rest, peace, hope and comfort for the bereaved. Visiting war graves and cemeteries, especially in France, was also something I did as part of my university project work (studying French) sometimes taking photographs or placing a tribute on the graves of for people I knew back home. Many other WW2 Talk members do much the same thing and this forum is excellent for sharing this aspect of WW1 and WW2 war graves. Long may it continue! ............... "There is no reason why cemeteries should be places of gloom." Sir Frederic Kenyon, How the Cemeteries Abroad Will Be Designed, 1918 [From the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website]
A mate saw this blog & sent me a link as he knows it's my sort of thing. Cemetery Club Their FB page. Cemetery Club edit: ah see link is at bottom of the BBC page in post #1 . as you can guess I didn't read all of it.
