In Plain Sight: Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park

Despite a combined 35 odd years of London living between us, somehow neither PA nor I had ever heard of the awesomeness of Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park until we wandered into it after viewing houses in Mile End.

33 acres of tombstones overgrown by woodland, Tower Hamlets Cemetery was opened in 1841 as one of the 'magnificent seven' London cemeteries founded under an Act of Parliament to deal with overcrowding in smaller local graveyards - along with Highgate, West Norwood, Abney Park, Brompton, Nunhead and Kensal Green. It closed to burials in 1966 and was left to neglect.

such is life

It is now a nature reserve and, when you are walking through the mature 30, 40 foot trees, it feels like you are outside the city until you see a block of flats through the branches, or hit the high wall that surrounds it.

a little melancholy and incongruously bucolic. 
one of those small discoveries that keeps living here sweet.

photos from my phone