The Impossiblity of grave-hunting in Abney Park Cemetery

Recently I attempted to go headstone hunting or grave hunting in Abney Park Cemetery after noticing there were many requests for people to find the grave sites - from descendants who no longer lived in the UK. There were so many plaintive requests for photos of lost memorials. I wondered why no one had helped these people with their requests for photos, and I thought I'd try to do this over the weekend, for just an hour or two. You know, just head on to Abney one afternoon and FIND ALL THE GRAVES. Fulfill a photo request. Or two. Or three.... Or a hundred and eighty five?




At first when I scrolled down the list I thought it would be a piece of cake to help search for the graves. There didn't seem so many when you're just speed scrolling through the names. But when I tried to copy out the data, I realised there were actually a whopping total of 185 requests. This was more than I had expected in terms of a number. 185 individuals had clicked on this site wanting to find a specific grave for a specific person in this cemetery. And these were just the people who knew where the memorials were located in the cemetery. I mean, from a brief glance, I had thought there were just a few dozen requests online, but not 185 requests. Perhaps I was out of my depth trying to attempt to fulfill all 185 requests. It sounded like a tall order to photograph, let alone locate 185 graves in an afternoon. But every name was a person, and how could I miss a single name on the list?

As I copied out the names, I began to develop the illusion that this was not a world so far away. I knew the area and the roads of Stoke Newington like the back of my hand, I had already read a lot about the local history, I could imagine the roads and places and houses and the work and lives that went on inside them; certain surnames resurfaced many times like Wood, Woods, Watts, Loomes, Levesque,... as I copied the names out I began to imagine I could understand how this cemetery worked, but that was definitely just some weird kind of survivorship bias...



For some reason I erroneously had the number "40,000" in my head - I thought there were 40,000 people buried in Abney Park's 12.53 hectares (31.0 acres). I realise now that I thought this because I must have seen this signboard stating that there were 40,000 headstones still remaining. But the real number of burials in Abney Park is actually well over 200,000 at this point! I was surprised by this density. For my own reference I went to google the size of one of Singapore's oldest cemeteries, Bukit Brown, which occupies about 85 hectares (211 acres) and is said to house "over 100,000 graves". The British Isle Genealogy website keeps an online index of the 194,815 burials that took place in Abney Park from 1840 to 1978. 185 out of the 194,815 graves tabulated in 1978 in a time before I was even born - that makes a mere 0.09496188691 % of the graves there at Abney. Alas, 'twere nothing but an illusion of understanding the sheer volume of graves at Abney....



After tediously copying out and cross referencing the lost graves and memorials onto a section map I made my way down to Abney. By the way, if anyone wants a copy of my list, here is the google doc: Abney Park Cemetery Photo Requests





I was instantly overwhelmed and completely thwarted by thick overgrowth. It was not even possible to go beyond the second or third row of graves in a section unless I wanted to step on countless gravestones which had fallen over. Now I always knew it was thick in there, but until you attempt to match a name to a grave in a specific section, you may not fully appreciate how many graves there are!



There were Commonwealth war graves at this cemetery - instantly recognisable from afar - now that I've visited many Commonwealth war memorials...







Because the war graves were standardised through the war graves commission, I always knew what I was looking at when I saw a war grave.



But graves come in all shapes...



in all formats...



in all sizes....



Some are very wordy...



Some get straight to the point...



Many are standing (or falling over) in all sorts of different angles...

I have a newfound respect for gravehunting as it is extremely difficult. In fact, I think it is entirely impossible. George also said I shouldn't just go around the cemetery "randomly" shrieking out names as I was looking for them.



"SECTION D06!!! HENRY VALE! WHERE ARE YOU?"



"Could Henry Vale be in there?"



"Or is Henry Vale in there?"



"Ada Wincup? Is that your headstone?"



"Mary Wood? Is your stone somewhere in there?"

CONCLUSION:
When people post a request for a photo of a grave, it is probably because:

- the grave stone no longer exists
- the grave stone cannot be found within the cemetery due to overgrowth
- the grave stone is broken or in pieces (sad but common sight)
- the text on the grave stone was too worn to read
- the location provided was wrong
- the surname provided was wrong because the female had her surname changed from her maiden name to married name
- the person requesting for the photo was simply hoping for a complete miracle

Alas I cannot work miracles, and I have much respect for the countless findagrave contributors and your tireless searching for lost memorials! I could not even find a single headstone out of my list of 185! AH! I HAVE FAILED!!! But at least I tried...

And speaking of the impossibility of finding graves in Abney, its worth noting that Abney Park Cemetery is no longer a 'working' cemetery accepting new burials, so you can't find a grave plot there anymore even if you were wanting to have yourself buried there. In case you were wondering what is the cost of being buried at one of London's 'finest' such as Highgate Cemetery, it was mentioned in a Guardian article that the cost of being buried at Highgate is currently £18,325. £16,475 for the plot and £1,850 for digging. So... yep, unless you are rolling in the money, it would truly be pretty impossible to find your grave here...

Lavender Hill Cemetery: what is your likelihood of being crushed by a falling headstone? and what's happening to the design of baby memorials in the UK today?

Photo documentation of a circular walk around Gordon Hill, Lavender Hill, Strayfields, and Hillyfields



It appears to me as if travellers on the Herts Loop are the target market for Class B Bricks; I have seen this ad on several of the stops just beyond Zone 4. Class B are those generic red engineering bricks that are most commonly used in Britain - cheaper than Class A,



Gordon Hill is in Zone 5 which makes it an affordable and quick stop to get to from Harringay. On this walk I decided to hit up a couple cemeteries and do a sort of circular walk around the area.



You'll notice that on the side there is a little sign indicating that this cemetery contains Commonwealth War Graves. When I visited it in March I did not really understand what "Commonwealth War Graves" meant, but now after having visited many cemeteries and memorials I can recognise the distinctive standardised headstones.



Lavender Hill Cemetery Church



A stately cemetery



It seems many of the stones in Lavender Hill have been recently subject to a H&S audit...



"Failed memorial"

Naturally, on seeing this, one might wonder whether this is health and safety completely gone mad - and what are the real risks involved with falling memorials. Is it true that falling headstones pose a credible threat to public health and safety? Or is it unnecessary mass hysteria and the circulation of an urban myth? So I did a little googling and found this: From this britarch discussion post:

SUMMARY OF ACCIDENTS RELATING TO MEMORIALS 1982 - 2003

3 year old boy crushed by gravestone - Fatal (Wear Valley)
2 year old child injured by falling gravestone - non fatal (Sunderland)
2 year old child injured by falling gravestone - non fatal (Preston)
9 year old child crushed by gravestone - fatal (Liverpool)
9 year old child crushed by gravestone - non fatal (Burnley)
4 year old child trapped by falling headstone - non fatal (Westminster)
20 months child, struck by recently erected headstone - non fatal (Plymouth)
3 year old child, trapped by fallen headstone - non fatal (Port Talbot)
44 year old man, trapped by fallen headstone - fatal (Belper)
5 year old child, crushed by memorial - non fatal (Chester)
6 year old child, crushed by falling memorial - fatal (Harrogate)
2ft high memorial in Dukinfield cemetery fell onto a woman's leg and
took her skin off down to her ankle, then trapped it against a kerb and
broke it in five places - non fatal (25th September 2002)
Young man killed in a Salford Churchyard - fatal (2003)

Also I also remember the case of the freak accident of the 8 year old boy instantly killed by a headstone in Glasgow: BBC: Ciaran Williamson killed 'instantly' by falling headstone (2015). However if these represent the statistics of the whole of the UK over 20 years then I say YOUR RISK OF BEING FATALLY CRUSHED UNTIL DEAD BY FALLING HEADSTONE IS INDEED GREATLY EXAGGERATED!



But, er, I suppose it doesn't mean you should intentionally lay your head underneath these headstones that have just failed their H&S test.

Although then again, no one can really stop you from doing that. I suppose the weird thing about all of this H&S/compensation culture is that whilst usually an institution or organisation or cemetery in this case may be expected to have a duty of care to the people they employ or interact with, the public don't really need to have a duty of care towards their own safety...



There was some dramatic weather...



As the weather began to turn and I walked further into the cemetery.... I noticed the graves getting more.... decorative?



I realised this was the baby and young children section of the cemetery.



What on earth started this trend in which Britain's bereaved parents design their child's memorial entirely out of garden ornaments, plastic decorations and children's toys?



Although they're meant to be memorials for babies and young children, I can't help but feel that there's also some sort of contest going on when they are laid out side by side; it looks like some wild and crazy amateur garden decorating contest or something occurred here, especially with the little garden fences erected around these plots. "Competitive grieving, on your marks, get set.... Erect the plastic windmills! Pile on the Poundland tinsel! More B&Q solar powered lights and garden ornaments!"





I'm now really curious to see whether baby memorial designs have also gone all plastic in other countries and regions...

Adventures in Hong Kong: Chinese Surveyors, Basement Food Courts, Mongkok Police Station, and Kowloon Walled City Park

Recently TEAM FIRE visited Hong Kong, a foggy grey city that for the most part, of which many parts smelled a lot like fried fish and stinky tofu shops, and other parts looked like they came out of some part of Grand Theft Auto (like the very generic sounding "harbour city"). It was generally a leisurely exploration, in which we mostly meandered around parts of Tsim Sha Tsui, occassionally wandered up to Mong Kok, crossed the waters on the train or ferry to eat lots of egg tarts near Central/Soho. Here are a couple of the highlights:

Chinese Surveyor Markings

This being the first chinese country I have ever gone to, I am delighted to report that construction workers / land surveyors / civil engineers in HK sometimes actually use chinese characters in their markings on the ground! Here is one exemplary example that seems to be saying "400 BAMBOO", spotted near the waterfront along Tsim Sha Tsui.

All Shopping Malls Have Food Courts in their Basement Floor

Tsim Sha Tsui Promenade
It was near lunch time when we encountered the "400 BAMBOO" marking above along Tsim Sha Tsui Promenade, but we were already starving, and there were bleak prospects for finding cheap roadside food places in that area. Not far from that point, I saw what appeared to be a mall-type departmental store in the distance. Despite never having been to any buildings from that chain, I felt compelled to make a beeline for it. And I was gratified that my hunch had been correct - that here in HK they also had the convention of installing a food court at the lowest basement level (much to G's amazement). I realised that this is something so predictable in Singapore that I instinctively expect every shopping mall and multistorey department store to have a food court at either at the very top roof level or the bottom basement floor (or sometimes even on both!). Can anyone explain why this convention is as such?

Unfortunately, we could not find any vegetarian options at the aforementioned food court. The only "vegetarian" dish there was not really vegetarian either. This was to be the running theme throughout our food adventures through Hong Kong. To be affixed with the puzzled stares of random food sellers and waiters scratching their heads in confusion and muttering in chinese, "WHAT??? YOU DON'T WANT MEAT OR FISH? HOW ABOUT THIS LITTLE MICROSCOPIC PRAWN ON TOP OF THIS VEGETABLE? OR THIS FISHCAKE??? I MEAN, THAT'S NOT MEAT, RIGHT??!"



Speaking of vegetarian options, for any vegetarians or vegans visiting HK, I'd recommend Kung Tak Lam Shanghai Vegetarian Cuisine (功德林上海素食) at located at the 7th floor of 1881 Heritage (1 Peking Road, Tsim Sha Tsui). Even people who eat anything and everything will find this restaurant very fascinating; its menu has hundreds of items, and we went back twice and ordered completely different things but everything we tried there was really exciting and exceptional. I think a lot of the best vegetarian restaurants are like a lot like food/flavour labs; forced by necessity to innovate in order to compete with the maddening hordes of meat dishes (especially in Asia where seafood and the use of ground prawn paste as an seasoning ingredient is virtually ubiquitous). Above is a picture of their classic Cold Shanghainese Noodle with seven sauces from Kung Tak Lam.

Mong Kok Police Station

According to the Guinness Book of Records, Mongkok (旺角) is apparently the most densely populated place in the world. Just north of the Tsim Sha Tsui area, this was certainly the most crowded area we saw in Hong Kong. The one thing in my mind was: WHY IS EVERYONE ON THE STREETS INSTEAD OF BEING AT WORK? Were a lot of these people standing around Mongkok also tourists like we were? (There sure were a lot of PRC tourists) I mean, population density could refer to towerblocks with more cramped dwellings than usual, like perhaps due to buildings housing "cage people", but the roads themselves were indeed crazy.


Of course, for all you aficionados of Category III Anthony Wong type films, a trip to Mongkok would not be complete with a souvenir photo outside the Mongkok Police Station...

Kowloon Walled City Park

We visited the site of the Kowloon Walled City (九龍寨城), which was completely demolished by 1994 and replaced by some sort of a landscaped park. From documentaries I had watched in the past, the idea of a "vertical urban village" built out of super-dense city of interwoven high-rise tenements that had developed without real foundations and without centralised authority was of mythic proportions.



List of things you can't do at the Kowloon Walled City Park
Sad to say the park that has replaced it was not in its best condition when we visited it, thus making it feel slightly like the Kowloon Walled City's demolition was all for naught; like an administrative exercise that had cleaned it up but left it with a gaping, unoccupied hole.



This is a picture that I had taken on the way to the park - a mossy stone with the words "Kowloon Walled City", with a huge crack over the word "city". I wondered if this crack over the word city was intentional, so I set about looking for other pictures of this particular stone plaque to see if it had been cracked in other photos.



Stone Plaque - Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons (2006)



Stone Plaque - Image Credit: asianfiercetiger (2011)

I didn't actually find any other pictures of that particular stone I had seen, but whilst searching on Wikipedia and Flickr I did find a picture of a different stone plaque with a crack over the exact same word - right over the word 城 （"city")! The above pictures are of the main stone plaque by the South Gate. I like how it hasn't been moved in all this time although in all possibility these fragments might not have been cemented down to the ground.

Because of this, I think the cracks on both stone plaques are very much intentional: maybe a bit like how when chinese graves are exhumed, the gravestones must be broken into pieces so as to symbolise that whatever the stone once stood for is no longer there... A symbolic memorial for a broken city.

Here is the first of a great four-part documentary on the Kowloon Walled City: