Civil cemetery

Back in September – bear with me, this is on theme for spooky October, I promise – I went to a friend's civil partnership at Abney Park cemetery in London. (You will be astonished, flabbergasted, to learn that this was a friend from my goth clubbing days.) Abney Park is one of what's come to be known as the 'magnificent seven'. These are the seven cemeteries, inspired by Pere Lachaise in Paris, created around what was then the edge of London as the rapidly-growing capital's church burial grounds simply couldn't hold any more bodies. Kensal Green (1833) was the first, then came West Norwood (the first in the world to use the gothic style), Highgate (the really famous one), Abney Park, Brompton, Nunhead, and Tower Hamlets (the only one not at least partially still in operation; it's now a nature reserve). 

I looked around for an angel with two arms. Most are missing one.

Needless to say, it has always been my goal to see all seven. Some mad blighters attempt to visit all seven in a day, but it's a real challenge, and what's the point of doing that when you can't have a good snout around?

The creators of Abney Park also took inspiration from Mount Auburn near Boston (USA, not Lincolnshire) and made the cemetery an arboretum as well as a burial ground. While infill has happened over the centuries and it's no longer laid out as an A-Z of trees, it is wonderfully woody, and the locals all seem to appreciate it for walking and simply sitting and chatting in a green space. 

Mr Robot, off to scout out the chapel.

As Mr Robot was taking his fancy camera we got there early so he could check for light, snap anything interesting on the restored mortuary chapel where the civil partnership was being held, and so on. Had we not had an even planned, I think I would have spent much longer poking around as there are some really interesting monuments at Abney Park. We walked past the main entrance, which was designed in the Egyptian Revival style (much to the horror of noted gothic fan Pugin, who hated it), had lunch at a very nice Italian place around the corner, then walked in the other entrance, which happened to be close to some of the more celebrated monuments. It's non-denominational, so many notable Victorian nonconformists are buried there, including the Booths (founders of the Salvation Army) and leading slavery abolitionists. 

We did spot a few of the more famous memorials, including the life-sized marble lion. I also found it interesting to see Victorian trends in action – there'd be a whole row of urns, or one of broken columns, as though people had all seen similar memorials at the funeral director's shop and said, "We'll take one of those!" It's one thing to read about popular symbols, another to see just how popular those symbols were in how they were all lined up together. 

It was a lovely day, spent celebrating two wonderful people, and I got to visit one of the magnificent seven! That's one down, six to go...

Modern, but brilliant, memorial. Walk on, Eric…