Since the beginning of lock down I've been forced to make the most of the local scenery. Trying to find new curiosities to look at as I go out for my daily, self-isolating walks. A favourite haunt of mine has been Eston Cemetery. This is a beautiful cemetery, a decent length walk away from where I live. (I'll share some of the pictures I took a month or so ago at the bottom of the page.) It's an old cemetery, so it has lots of picturesque well-worn gravestones. Plus, as Christianity was more of a thing for the average person back then, there are also lots of carved angels and crucifixes and other bits of Christian iconography. Likewise there are quite a few masonic style obelisks dotted about. So along with all the trees and squirrels it's quite a nice little scenic detour.
However, what I'm primarily posting about today is not that cemetery, but one closer to home. There are two little cemetery plots on my estate - the dreaded Thorntree - literally about five minutes walk away. I've walked past these cemeteries a million times, but had never been in or paid a great deal of attention to them. They're much newer (the housing estate only really being built after the war), so the graves are much more formal. Just rows of slabs that no doubt mean a great deal to the family members of the people buried there, but that aren't especially interesting to the average passerby. In essence it doesn't quite have that old graveyard feel. Everything is too fresh and personal.
Anyhow, I had a wander round about a week back, mainly pressed by lock down boredom, and found them to be surprisingly pleasant little places. So yesterday I took a few pictures.
Interestingly there's also a large plot in one of the two cemeteries for Muslim graves. This is a very white, working class part of town, so I was surprised by this. I wanted to take some pictures of that section too, but there were some families visiting graves and I was worried they might be a little offended. In fact, my first thought was that they might think I was some kind of white nationalist photographing it all as evidence of some Muslim invasion or something. Which is quite sad really.
Maybe I might get a few pictures to add to the ones below next time I visit.
(click to enlarge)
(this one was ruined slightly by the Tesco bag
under the hedge on the left - typical Thorntree)
Now below the pictures from Eston Cemetery. You can see the oldy-ness by comparison.
fini.
[Update: after penning the article I went to get a few more pics. Beautifully sunny day out there. I got a few pictures of the Muslim part of the cemetery. Again, I didn't like to intrude too much and film the gravestones in detail, though some were beautifully ornate. I did capture the nice little placard type thing.
I also got another pic of the little, nicely-framed Jesus statue - this time sans the Tesco carrier bag.
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