If you go back through my blogs (or is a regular follower), you may notice that for some strange reason I have a peculiar interest in historic graves and cemeteries. I used to work very close to the South End Cemetery and placed a Geocache there so I visited it quite often to check up on the container. Since changing jobs a year ago I haven't been back that often but stopped by last week and took a stroll through it with my camera again. The one thing that always get to me is seeing graves of infants which is unfortunately something a bit more common dating from the 1800's than it is today. I tried cutting out the names on the stone from the picture but just had to snap this pic.
The South End Cemetery came into existence in 1882. At that stage each of the other cemeteries in town had been for a specific church or religion, while South End was meant for (just about) everybody. A simple fourfold division between Church of England, Nonconformist, Roman Catholic, and Muslim was adopted and this spatial pattern was retained in subsequent cemetery planning until the 1990s when the cemetery was full.
We have more in common than I knew, Jonker. I also love graveyards. In my book A Walk in the Park I wrote about the little graveyard in the Knysna forest near where the goldfields used to be. At least 20 children under 10 years old are buried there, the tiny mounds unmarked. An information board tells the story of Esther Amelia Graham, who used to sew pinafores for her daughters and grow honeysuckle and dahlias in her garden. In the late 1880s, she had a breast removed with cancer and returned to Millwood to look after her family. By 1891, the town was dying and the Grahams packed up their belongings, preparing to say their goodbyes the next morning. But Esther, only 34, died during the night and is buried in Millwood graveyard, her headstone now covered in mould and mildew. It's such a sad story of shattered dreams...
ReplyDeleteWould like to find out more on the abandoned grave site next to the fenced South end cemetery
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