Silke Loc: Germany

Highgate West Cemetery in London is absolutely worth a visit.
It's one of the oldest graveyards in London, and you can take a tour. If you want to take photographs, you need to get a pass for it (in case you ever go there)
These were taken at least 20 years ago, if not 25 years ago. Pre digital cameras.
I keep meaning to go back. I keep meaning to go back with my old Pentax, which can handle infrared film.
I want to go at dusk, in high summer, when all the stones and monuments are heated by the sun, and take shots with infrared film. :) I'd imagine it would turn into quite an interesting and different perspective.

Highgate East is across the road. That's where Marx is buried, but it's boring. :)

A bit further down the road (Swains Lane) you have "Holly Village" (also referred to as "Holly Lodge Estate") which is something utterly unique. There are 8 tiny houses, clustered around a "Village Green", each completely unique, and very, very old. Alas, you cannot go inside -- but you can peek through the gate. (Last pic)

Egyptian Walkway (leading to the circular crypt)

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The tree (Cedar) growing on top of the crypts

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I'm guessing he was a lion tamer. :)

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Overgrown but beautiful

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Entrance to Holly Village.

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R. Bush Loc: Ogden, UT

Great 35mm set. Thank you for posting them. Do you remember what type of film you used?

DeanS Loc: Capital City area of North Carolina

Very nice.

DeanS Loc: Capital City area of North Carolina

Very nice shots.

DeanS Loc: Capital City area of North Carolina

Sorry for the double. I recd a notice that the first did not post.

Silke Loc: Germany

Thanks for looking. :)

Unfortunately I don't remember what film they were taken on. I remember I used an old Praktica Camera (given to me by my Dad, who'd had it a good 20 years), but that's about it.

angela k Loc: Long Island

Silke, now I understand why you recommended this to me... I'll never get there, but I did enjoy your shots, even if they were taken a long time ago!!
Thanks for the tour and for sharing!! You need to go back and share more!!

Silke Loc: Germany

Thanks, Angela K :)
You have some pretty amazing cemeteries in the US, as well, even if they aren't quite as old. (Highgate is Grade 1 listed, which means *nothing* can be changed at all.) It dates back to 1839. (Kensal Green is a few years older, but not much.)
Their website is worth a visit too. :)

I am digging out the photos I took in Metaire Cemetery & St. Louis #1, New Orleans, because there are some stunning markers there too.

angela k Loc: Long Island

The cemetery I posted the other day opened in 1729, but grant it, the headstones were basic, yours are very ornate!

photophile Loc: Lakewood, Ohio, USA

I like the cedar tree and the entrance gate.

Silke Loc: Germany

Oh there are older ones (Tintagel springs to mind.) :) But they weren't marked with stones. That's a "Modern" thing. :) And people didn't used to bury their dead in public cemeteries until well into the 1700's, most upper classes have crypts on their land.
Kings and Queens are interred inside Westminster Abbey, St George's Chapel Windsor and such.
Bunhill Fields in London has some of the oldest marked graves (1688 is the oldest marker there, I think)
I know of one in the Peak District that has markers dating back to 1666 and has a lot of plague victims buried there.
St. Pancras' age has been debated as long as I can remember, but it is definitely as old as early 4th Century (330AD or thereabouts) but they didn't use stone markers back then.
Iona Abbey in Scotland has ancient markers, well over a thousand years old, but no dates. Nearly all Scottish Kings are buried there, dating back to 858AD.
Whitby (of Dracula fame) is also extremely old, but most nobles were buried inside the chapel. (Can't have the plebs troop across your grave, right?)
They did find one in Somerset, in a cave, not that long ago, which dates back nearly 10,000 years. No markers, obviously. :)
I've been to an old celtic one in Ireland, which also had some very old markers. With most of them you can't decipher the dates anymore, because the elements weathered them so much.

Lots and lots of really old ones in the UK. :) Probably tons more on the continent, but I think most ancient ones wouldn't have any markers at all.
The US is very young in comparison to Europe, in terms of modern civilization, but the Europeans who settled there brought the marker practice with them. The Native Americans obviously wouldn't have used markers, that's a European thing, but I think their burial grounds would be in line with the Somerset one.
I would imagine there are maybe some pioneer markers in places, but I guess they were mostly made of wood and thus vanished through time and elements.

I tend to go and look, take pictures, and later try to find out about the people. It's actually quite interesting and you can learn a lot from such research. :) Though often I don't find anything at all. :/

It's one of the reasons I urge people to print off photographs. To write stuff down on paper, or print off things they want to keep.
We're losing history in this digital age, and it's sad.
Think about it -- 20 years ago we stored a lot of stuff on diskettes. Who still has a disk drive? How many CD's have been lost? DVDs break, computer hard drives fail. We have so much stuff that can go boom at a moment's notice.
One of my most prized possessions are the letters between Paul and myself, from 30 years ago.
In the age of texts and emails -- I wouldn't have that.
Especially when the phone company told me "All texts will be lost" when I had his phone disconnected.
I write in journals. Not often, not a lot...but I do.
So if in a hundred years time, it's "The world according to Silke", then so be it. :)

angela k Loc: Long Island

My friend.... what you say is all so true and thank goodness for people like you that still touch a pen to paper!!!! I know I'm guilty of not doing that and it's so sad because I feel like I've almost forgotten how to write!!! I wish I had more time in a day to do all these wonderful things...

I did buy a machine that will convert all my VHS tapes of my children grown up to CD's, haven't yet attempted it, but I need to before the tapes rot away!!
Again, thanks for the history lesson and enjoy the day!!!!