Part of JNWS Halloween challenge: Graveyards
All these photos were taken at Southampton Common Old Cemetery, England. © Southampton Old Lady
You might also be interested in my other posts about this cemetery:
Halloween Challenge – Graveyards
Part of JNWS Halloween challenge: Graveyards
All these photos were taken at Southampton Common Old Cemetery, England. © Southampton Old Lady
You might also be interested in my other posts about this cemetery:
SNIPS & SNAPS 
I’m going to have to look out for the poor boy without his head next time I’m up there and I can’t say that I’ve noticed the gravestone with a tree on top.
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It is near the graves of WW1 Belgian Soldiers – I discover new ones each time I go for a walk. I am guessing the boy was the son of a wealthy Italian Merchant – there were a great many in Southampton before WW2.
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I know where the Belgians are. I’ll look a bit closer next time. I’m always moved by the first gravestone I see when I go in, which is for the boy who was killed by lightening on the Common. I don’t why unless it’s that he’s buried more or less where he died.
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Yes there is a link to my post about this ‘Killed by Lightening’ on this post – there were two of them – how tragic!
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I’ve had a look at that post now. It is very sad.
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What a sad little figure the headless boy makes. Is that a life-buoy he’s holding under one arm? Fallible salvation in this world, as opposed to certain salvation (signified by the cross in his hand) in the next?
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Yes you are correct – and it is sad that his head is lost.
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It’s a powerful image.
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I always love photos of old graveyards – you captured some great ones here! So sad that the statue of the boy is headless, although it definitely adds the creepy haunted ambiance to the cemetery.
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That are so many old gravestones in England – too many to clean and repair – it is sad.
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I tend to wander in cemeteries (why do we Americans seem to prefer that word rather than graveyards, I wonder?) but most graves are far more plain. I do think that in places on the east coast there are more stone tales told, but most of our communities are far newer, and of course when people still were moving west, there was no time for anything more than a mound and a marker. On the other hand, I do happen to know where there’s a huge Jesus atop a grave, wearing cowboy boots!
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Yes you are right – we have some ancient grave stones dating from centuries ago, but they came in to their own in the 1700s – most people had paupers graves until the 1950s. I would just love to see that huge Jesus with cowboy boots – so personal to the poor soul buried.
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Some nice pictures here. They reminded me of when I was a youth, I lived in Highgate, and used to spend many hours in the new and old cemeteries photographing headstones and statues, some of which were really quite elaborate, and others overgrown. A photographer’s paradise.
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I love Highgate Cemeteries, I used to do the same when I live in Hackney in the 1980s. Those tombs in the old cemetery are just so gothic – They used to film a lot of horror movies there – I think both the original Frankenstein and Dracula were filmed there.
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When setting off I used to joke ‘I’m off to see Marx and Spencer’…there was a headstone to a Spencer very close to Karl Marx.
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Ha Ha! – Yes its a very impressive grave in the so called “new” cemetery isn’t it?
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That’s the one.
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Oh, I love these– especially the lead photo. So eerie and so poignant too. Perfect.
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Thanks T&T
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What a terrific spooky graveyard. It puts me in mind of Neil Gaiman’s Graveyard Book.
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I’ll have to look that up…
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Eerie, yet astounding. Great photos!
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Thank you
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Reblogged this on Journal Edge.
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