Did you know that, seen from archaeological perspective, London soil is a layer cake with evidence dating as far as Neolithic era through to Bronze and Iron ages, Roman, Medieval, Post Medieval and Contemporary period?
Much can be learned of the social context and culture by how those populations treated and disposed of their dead, how beliefs and rituals shaped their practices and how material wealth affected their final home.
This one of a kind companion to London famous cemeteries, crypts, catacombs, churchyards and burial traditions, written in original elegantly illustrated verse, makes accessible and lightens the otherwise somber subject.
'Gravers' takes the reader through burial traditions of pre-Roman London, Londinium, Lundenwic and the modern Big Smoke. The practice of using collective barrows, chamber tombs, ring ditches, cremation pyres, catacombs, crypts, cemeteries and crematoriums is eloquently related through illustrated, artfully crafted verse.
Take a journey to the Magnificent Seven Victorian cemeteries: Abney Park, Brompton, Highgate, Kensal Green, Nunhead, Tower Hamlets, West Norwood and spot rare mildew, great trees, multitude of bird special and lively small mammals inhabiting shelters created by crumbling tombs and thick overgrowth. Admire the funerary art of thoughtfully commissioned by Victorian mourners, pay respects to impressive mausolea, find elaborate sculptures of lions and dogs, pause to read the epitaphs, notice how contemporary choices have changed. Continue to the tunnels of catacombs where lead coffins occupy rows or shelves. Descend into church crypts and see the preservation efforts, the transformation to cafes and galleries and wonder at the relics at St Brides Charnel House and learn that St Paul's Charnel House was cleared to form a bone hill, lending the name to Bunhill Fields, a Dissenters burial ground in the City.
As the journey takes the reader to City of London Cemetery, one finds a letterbox intended to send the messages to heaven. Also in East London, read about the East Ham Jewish cemetery that holds the remains of, most likely, Jack the Ripper.
The book also tells the story of the world's renowned Golders Green crematorium and its famous Columbariums, where the ashes of great and talented are preserved in artisanal urns and caskets. It tells of St Pancras Old cemetery where the grave of Mary Wollstonecraft, the advocate of women's rights, is located close to what used to be known as a Hardy tree. It mentions the lesser fortunate, the outcasts, laid to rest in Crossbones Graveyard and the 'Liquid History', the Thames, that for centuries held the secrets of those that were deposited in its waters.
Moreover, it travels to pet cemeteries- in Hyde Park, where the aristo-dogs and cats were interred and Ilford, where the distinguished war veteran animals and birds are memorialised.
This one of a kind of book is highly original and instantly enlightening-filled with history, facts, insights and observations eloquently and neatly composed.
It fits neatly in the hand and makes a wonderful pocket size companion and gift to anyone interested in the Big Smoke-visitors, tourists, guides, city fans, culture and geography explorers, city trippers and family adventurers across diverse age groups.
'Gravers: what bonds old bones' is the 13th title in the London Baby Series.
