A green path

This is one of the paths through Spring Bank cemetery, the eastern end that's no longer used. The trees are doing their yearly trick of looking new. 

Cold in the earth-and the deep snow piled above thee Far, far removed, cold in the dreary grave!

Thank you for that, Emily. Here's one for the psychrophilic taphophiles amongst us, snowy tombstones in Cottingham churchyard.

Frosty afternoon

This was taken a couple of weeks back when we had some cold weather. Those young trees are part of the new cemetery's natural burial plot; a new twist to the saying dust to dust ashes to Ash.

Angelic

Spring Bank Cemetery has a few angel tombstones, sadly many of them have been damaged by the elements or plain old vandalism. This one seems intact. It is the grave of one Wilfred Jessop (d 1930), his wife Isabella Maud (d 1924) and his mother-in-law, Jane Hooper (d 1914). I can find nothing about these people but I'm assuming they had money, monuments like this were not and are not cheap.

There similar posts over at Taphophile Tragics.

Opulent Autumn Cemetery

You don't have to be a lover of graveyards to appreciate the glories of Spring Bank Cemetery. At this time of year it's looks spectacular.

The cemetery is on the Larkin Trail. Philip Larkin described it as the most beautiful place in Hull and for once I could almost agree. In defending the cemetery against "improvement" in the late 70s he said it was a "natural cathedral, an inimitable blended growth of nature and humanity of over a century; something that no other town could create whatever its resources". I  think he might just be guilty of exaggeration. 

R38 Disaster Memorial

You'll no doubt have heard of the Hindenberg disaster in which 35 were killed when a hydrogen filled airship caught fire onlanding in New Jersey; I doubt you'll have much awareness of a similar disaster sixteen years earlier that claimed even more lives in the skies near Hull. On August 23^rd 1921 an R38 airship was completing its trials from Howden, when it broke up and crashed into the Humber near Hull's Victoria Pier claiming 44 lives and putting the brakes on the British airship industry. This memorial in the Western Cemetery has two plaques one for the British and one for the US aircrew. Several crew members are interred beneath this memorial.

There similar posts over at Taphophile Tragics.

Western Cemetery

The Western Cemetery is essentially an extension of the Spring Bank cemetery [1, 2] opened in 1889 and still in use. It is across the railway line from the site of Hull Fair which you can see in the background. Most of the early memorials are showing signs of aging except for this one to Zebedee Scaping. Who he? My searches show he was born in Eton then went to the Royal Hospital School which has connections with the Navy. Later he becomes the headmaster of Trinity House school in Hull, a position he held for fifty-five years and, as this monument says, is  known in "every port and on every sea". I've managed to find a photo of him here , he's the one with the beard. The memorial was restored and regilded a few years ago and looks as it must have done when new.

Zeb married Georgiana Harriette Fury in Dublin in 1859, his occupation as that time is described as "Esquire", those were the days, eh!. From census records I found they had a son, also called Zebedee, well it would have been a shame to lose such a fine name.

If you like wandering round cemeteries why not wander over to Taphophile Tragics and see what others have posted.

St Mary's Cemetery, Air Street, Sculcoates

Many years before the city of Hull was built the village of Sculcoates huddled by the muddy flooded banks of the river Hull. The name, Sculcoates, comes, I've  been told, from Skuli's Cottages; Skuli being a Viking who settled in these parts. Anyhow time passed and a church was built, St Mary's, with its attendant graveyard, is first mentioned in 1232  but it could be much older. The church was rebuilt in 1760 and done up again in 1875 at the cost of a £1000. A description of it reads "An arcade of four bays separates the nave from the aisles. The east window is filled ,with stained glass, representing the Crucifixion. In the chancel is a fine old brass chandelier of 16 lights, of the Queen Anne period."  This  church  ran the old school I showed the other day. So why, you might ask, am I telling you all this instead of showing you a photo of it in all its glory? Well, sadly, the church was pulled down in 1916 and rebuilt somewhere else. So there's only the  old graveyard left, stuck between the RE:group tanks and Bankside's passing traffic. 

The magnificent  tomb must be at least 10 feet tall, unfortunately I couldn't find any inscription on it but it shows the wealth that must have been around in what is now an uninhabited area.

Lovers of graveyards and tombs should head over to Taphophile Tragics.

Cemetery Sump

I've posted before [ 1 ] about the new cemetery created to take Hull's ever expanding number of dead. I think I mentioned that it needed some special drainage to avoid unfortunate accidents happening (you know just what I mean). Well this is that special arrangement; a vast sump in the middle of the cemetery. I just hope it works, must be awful to spend eternity with damp tootsies!

Autumn Cemetery

By Margot K Juby

 This angel is in Spring Bank cemetery, a wonderful place to wander through especially in Autumn.

The Great Visitation of Cholera

 Lost in the wonderfully overgrown Spring Bank cemetery is this slightly leaning monument to a disastrous cholera outbreak in Hull in 1849. The plaque below gives the chilling numbers of dead; we can only imagine the horrors of those days. Nowadays with our clean drinking water and improved sanitation cholera is practically unknown in the UK but it stills kills over 100,000 mainly in the developing world.

Sarcophagus

The General Cemetery on Spring Bank was started in the 1840s and was a well laid and ordered place with well kept paths and cleared spaces. Now its filled with matured trees and it's just a place to walk the dog and for other less salubrious activities. You can still come across stunning examples of the Victorian near obsession with mourning and funerary monuments. It is difficult now to see quite what the purpose of this massive marble sarcophagus might be. Here it stands slowly eroding and being swallowed up by ivy.

Fourny père et fils

Here's another piece of classic Victorian cemetery furnishing, the broken column. In this grave lie Jules and Hector Fourny, ship surveyors in Hull during the early nineteenth century. Jules Fourny came to Hull from Boulogne to make his fortune. They must have been successful as graves like this don't come cheap.

Memento mori

The Victorians seemed to have far grander funereal monuments than is the style these days. This fine angel stands in Spring Bank cemetery and is one of only a few to have survived the ravages of vandals and the Council's strange desire to flatten grave stones on grounds of "health and safety".

Empty plot

I have criticised in previous postings the policy of "Build it and they'll come" that seems to govern Hull's planning for the future. Well, I think for once they might be on a winner with this scheme. It's the new Priory Road Cemetery; a sure fire success unless we all achieve immortality.

This brand new plot is actually just outside Hull in Cottingham and caused a furore when it was proposed. There were all sorts of planning enquiries and appeals and a great deal of public money wasted. Seems all Hull's boneyards are full and they needed to spill out here. After nearly four years of digging and draining the new graveyard opened earlier this year.

It's a strange to wander through a cemetery without graves, usually there are headstones and memorials and so on and a feeling that you're in the presence of death. This is like a new housing estate, it doesn't have that "lived in" feeling if that makes any sense.

 Being an up-to-date place you get a choice of how you spend eternity: in the straight terraces (as above) or in decadent Nature with a woodland burial or perhaps a Muslim burial is your choice or any which way you choose. The only condition is your demise, it seems a small price to pay for a spot in this new necropolis.