There’s you, and then there’s not you: and you are faced with the question of how you are going to spend that time. It’s so much more profound than any hypothesis about some pathetic garden with unicorns and hugs that goes forever. People don’t even know how to spend their Saturday afternoons. What do I want with eternity?
- Tim Minchin
The conjoined cemeteries (entrance at the corner of Ivy Road and Brockley Road), created in 1858 and covering 37 acres, lack the scale and Gothic grandeur of Nunhead cemetery but the shadow play of its most overgrown parts evokes magic and menace.
The pathways through the trees, dotted with Ozymandian tributes, are beautiful and humbling. Some of the more open parts are more like a funereal version of Cargiant.
The cemeteries are also an important habitat for wildlife, including butterflies, sparrowhawks and stag beetles.
Click here for
the Friends of Brockley and Ladywell Cemeteries website.
