Weekend plans? How about a picturesque afternoon stroll through a graveyard? According to author and rambler Peter Ross, those vast expanses of crooked headstones might seem kinda morbid, but it’s to our detriment that we don’t appreciate them as places of celebration – of life and of love.
In ‘A Tomb With a View’, Ross tours the United Kingdom’s most scenic graveyards, homing in on the ‘stories and glories’ of the ordinary folk buried beneath the tombstones, with the aim of using cemeteries as a way to better understand Britain. In this way, the book could be used as a travel guide of sorts; a funereal path across the country’s recent history.
Ross also shines a spotlight on those taphophiles (tomb-lovers), himself included, who can’t get enough of cemeteries, funerals, graves and everything they’ve come to signify in a world where ‘morbid obsessions’ are the norm. ‘I hope that, despite the subject matter, people actually feel uplifted,’ he says.
We asked Ross to pick out five cemeteries across the UK that will win visitors over to the idea that burial grounds can be both beautiful and celebratory places. Tick them all off, and don’t forget to visit respectfully.
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