In the Catholic cemetery
Not many people know Sheffield and its environs better than me. I have wandered pretty much everywhere - walking, exploring and taking pictures. However, I had never before explored the cemeteries on Walkley Bank.
Walkley Bank is a plunging, wooded hillside that descends to the valley of The River Rivelin. Many times I had driven past the gates to St Michael's Catholic Cemetery but had never ventured inside. And that was my goal today but when I checked the city map, I noticed that there are in fact three connected cemeteries on that hillside.
Off Waller Road at the top there's the big general cemetery that was principally for Church of England and Methodist burials. Next to it is a small Jewish cemetery. From there it's a long way down to the Catholic cemetery.
Having just carefully repotted two large cacti, I drove over to Walkley Bank on a hot summer's afternoon. T-shirt and shorts weather and of course I took my camera to give you blogmates a sense of the three cemeteries that each suffer different degrees of neglect - but I kind of like that wildness, that sense of Nature returning.
I was enthralled with what I saw. So many stories. So much tangible evidence of lives passing. Once here, laughing and working and loving and raising families - now gone and pretty much forgotten. That is very likely what will happen to you and to me. A hundred years from now we will just be smudged names on our family trees.
I was particularly intrigued by the Jewish cemetery. Most of the gravestones bore Hebrew carving and death dates were frequently provided according to the Hebrew calendar. Apparently there is a Jewish tradition in which years are measured from the imagined day on which Earth was created so that what we would normally think of as the year 1928 becomes 5688. By the way, we are currently in the year 5786. Yes folks - it's only 5786 years since our world was created so forget about the other stuff you may have heard about - you know - geology, dinosaurs, evolution - that kind of thing.
At the bottom of Rachel Rosenhead's tombstone are these letters - "C.P.H.D.S.I.P.". What on earth could that mean? I had never seen these initials on a grave before so I had to do a little research when I got home. It means "Come Perish Here, Departed Souls In Peace" and it is apparently quite a common addition to Jewish gravestones.
I could have easily spent a day exploring those three cemeteries but it was hot and I needed to get home to make our evening meal and to prepare to watch England play Ghana in Boston.
It was a frustrating, nervy game and no goals were scored. Next in line is Panama on Saturday.
Military graves in Walkley Bank Cemetery. Both of these "private" soldiers died in 1921.
Weeks of rain and days of blistering heat.
ReplyDeleteI love the graveyard in the summer.
The tombstones camouflaged in colour.
Bug-life, swaggering weed, wildflower.
An English Graveyard by Julian Stannard.
The Poetry Society online.
Randall Jarrell said England got an extended spring but not a real summer.
He was from Tennessee and lived in North Carolina before his terrible death.
Cemeteries have always been places of peace and quiet for me, of watching birds and squirrels, pondering life and death and looking at beautifully carved stones and even more beautiful flowers and trees.
ReplyDeleteA disused overgrown cemetery is an important retreat for small and smallest wildlife, and can give human visitors a lot to think about.
Rachel Rosenhead died at only 44, but I hope she had a happy life. At least she did not have to endure the Holocaust.
The cemeteries look wonderful with all the green growth among the headstones. I wonder now what the world will be like in the real 5786? Will there still be people?
ReplyDeleteI had no idea there are military graves in Sheffield.
ReplyDeleteGraveyards are extraordinary places, beautiful with the old tombstones, nature allowed to run loose but I still remember what Bill the gravedigger told me and it wasn't nice ;)
ReplyDeleteA friend tells me that English graveyards are always allowed to return to the wild. Is that correct? I think it's a lovely idea: ashes to ashes, dust to dust and the land returns to it's original state
ReplyDeleteI love wandering around graveyards. Did any of the Jewish stones have little stones or pebbles placed on top? We saw a lot of Jewish graves in the ww cemetries in northern France. We saw little stones on top. The guide said it was a Jewish tradition.
ReplyDeleteWe have a wall of black and white photographs of past family members. The furthest back is Mary Butler who came to Blackburn from Lancaster in the late 19th century.
Not all of us will be forgotten.
A lovely post.
Slowly being reclaimed by the earth.
ReplyDelete