Comments on: Bluebells At Bow Cemetery

By: Michael Pyner

Michael Pyner — Mon, 30 Apr 2018 11:14:16 +0000

Thank you for this. I moved into Broadhurst House on the ‘new’ Bede Road Estate in 1966 aged 6 and lived there until I completed my university studies and left home at 21. The new estate still sits on the other side of Bow Common Lane from the cemetery.

The cemetery was graveyard, playground, refuge, hiding place, adventure playground and the nearest thing we had to countryside. When I ‘ran away’ from home aged 9 it was to the cemetery that I fled with two shirts, one pair of socks, two cakes and three slices of bread….. I lasted until dusk and the cemetery became a very different place.

I remember my mothers only comment when I returned home and she unpacked my satchel was “typical, you didn’t take clean underwear”. Known universally as “the cemo”…. this was a lovely step back in time and thank you again.

By: Paul Loften

Paul Loften — Thu, 26 Apr 2018 13:06:05 +0000

To Valerie, I was born and lived in Stoke Newington for many years and our family moved here and there and then into a new estate in 1965 in the shadow of Abney Park Cemetary. It was rumoured that the estate was built on a larger part of the cemetary where the remains of people were dug up and the land sold for development long ago. In the building where we lived there were some awful events , I wont go into details but some of the residents at the time explained their cause as retribution for the land being built on a former burial ground . Not being religious or a believer in this sort of thing we dissmissed it as superstition. But nevertheless…….

By: Jennifer Newbold

Jennifer Newbold — Thu, 26 Apr 2018 12:15:41 +0000

I love your breathtaking , evocative photos of Bow Cemetery. All flesh is grass indeed. And it’s beautiful.

By: Helen Breen

Helen Breen — Thu, 26 Apr 2018 11:42:25 +0000

Greetings from Boston,

GA, thanks for the stroll amidst the bluebells in Bow Cemetery. I need a glimpse of spring – New England spring is very late in coming this year. Great pics and prose including –

“… the clouds were gone and dazzling sunshine descended in shafts through the forest canopy turning the wet leaves into a million tiny mirrors, reflecting light in a vision of phantasmagoric luminosity,”

By: John Venes

John Venes — Thu, 26 Apr 2018 11:07:38 +0000

Simply beautifully written

By: Valerie Paynter

Valerie Paynter — Thu, 26 Apr 2018 10:13:06 +0000

How wonderful to see a very old graveyard still tolerated in London. Tolerated? Yes. How long before it gets sold to a developer, its bodies dug up and the bones reburied? I have this thought because it happened in Hove…twice, for the same graveyard. St. Andrews Church in Church Road Hove goes back to approx 12th century so its graveyard did/does too presumably. Graves at the southern end went in 1880 for road widening and then to the north of the church a huge number were removed in the 20th c to create a council carpark, then many, many more to create a primary school (built once, then built again further up over the carpark. Now the only graves left are in the immediate curtilege of the church itself and a Tesco carpark covers part of the original graveyard area (and bodies were found in this century when it was created). I often imagine (because there are remnant 19th c flintwalls to look at) how it might look today and how wonderful it would have been to still have it there to walk in, to have its peace, its trees, shrubs and….yes…bluebells too. So, GA, guard this Bow cemetery well, cherish it. For one day….

By: Bailey Jones

Bailey Jones — Thu, 26 Apr 2018 09:11:44 +0000

An uplifting walk. Beautifully described. I can see the rain drops on the leaves. A fine celebration if spring one of the city’s hidden natural places.

By: Margaret Tregear

Margaret Tregear — Thu, 26 Apr 2018 08:22:42 +0000

How wonderful to let a cemetery become a wild woodland busting with life. Beautiful pictures, thank you.

By: Peter Harrison

Peter Harrison — Thu, 26 Apr 2018 08:16:37 +0000

What beautiful photographs! They really lift the heart, and remind one that there are so many things to be grateful for, at a time when one feels in need of such encouragement. Thank you for having the generosity to share them!

By: Barbara Elsmore

Barbara Elsmore — Thu, 26 Apr 2018 08:07:37 +0000

What a marvellous place – please don’t let anyone even think about ‘tidying’ it up! And aren’t bluebells the trickiest of things to capture in a photograph? You can stand in their midst marvelling at their blue abundance and your camera later reveals nothing of the true fleeting magic of it all. You really have to be there if you can.