Thursday, April 05, 2007
Grave notes
The hole in the middle of Howell hill has now shrunk to a patch in the middle of the road, surrounded by a cluster of cones. While passing it, I was passed by a middle sized white van belonging to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. The thing is, what was such a van doing going to Cheam? What war grave do we have in the vicinity?
It prompted me to wonder what will happen to the first world war graves in the longer term. The big memorials might last a long time - say a thousand years - but it seems unlikely that the graveyards will. The one that I know best at Madingley (actually a cemetary for US airmen from the second world war) is immaculately cared for and the headstones look as new - but how long will it last? Will we ever bite the bullet and plough the things up? The cemetary at Arlington contains a lot of civil war headstones and as I recall it the grass around them is still cut from time to time, but they are gently mouldering away. No-one is painting them or redoing the lettering, so perhaps in time it will be easy enough to collect them up and re-use the ground.
Interest in such matters perhaps first prompted by discovering, a few days ago, a graveyard in a disused quarry in the centre of Liverpool, underneath the Anglican cathedral. A large dank hole, frequented, one imagines, by the best and brightest from Toxteth (just across the road) after dark. This is where the illustrii of Liverpool were laid to rest in the nineteenth century, after suitable procession down the processional ramp. Many of these headstones have now been gathered up and are used to line the sides of various paths. Perhaps Atilla the Hun had the right idea having himself buried in an unknown place in the bed of a river (the gravediggers being dispatched after the event (which included temporarily diverting the river) to make sure the secret was safe): that way one's grave never gets abused or misused.
The cathedral itself was huge and was very visible, the dark red sandstone brooding over the city. While very impressive, the place did not have a very sacred feel to it, inside or out. And the detailing of the interior was not quite right. The idea - reasonably sensible - was that the huge space and huge columns needed to be broken up with a bit of ornament, to be given a bit of life. But it doesn't work. You just have a modest clutter of stone bits and peices breaking up the lines of the place. The worst offender being the bridge built across the nave towards the other end from the alter. The lady chapel was on a more human scale (perhaps the size of Guildford cathedral - a place which I suppose to be of a similar age) and did have a much more sacred feel to it - enhanced when we visited by a black lady quietly singing in it. All in all we thought that the thing must be a bit of an embarassment to the ecclesiastical authorities, a giant red elephant. No wonder it took so long to finish the thing - having been started in 1900 or so it was not finished until the late seventies. But as with other public sector ventures, very hard to stop once you have started no matter how silly the thing has come to seem.
Which prompts the further wonder about what will happen to my late gang - CJIT - when a large chunk of what is now the Home Office is gobbled up into a Justice Ministry. Will it be shafted by all the people in DCA whom it has been annoying over the years? The greasy pole will be in constant use while it is all sorted out!
It prompted me to wonder what will happen to the first world war graves in the longer term. The big memorials might last a long time - say a thousand years - but it seems unlikely that the graveyards will. The one that I know best at Madingley (actually a cemetary for US airmen from the second world war) is immaculately cared for and the headstones look as new - but how long will it last? Will we ever bite the bullet and plough the things up? The cemetary at Arlington contains a lot of civil war headstones and as I recall it the grass around them is still cut from time to time, but they are gently mouldering away. No-one is painting them or redoing the lettering, so perhaps in time it will be easy enough to collect them up and re-use the ground.
Interest in such matters perhaps first prompted by discovering, a few days ago, a graveyard in a disused quarry in the centre of Liverpool, underneath the Anglican cathedral. A large dank hole, frequented, one imagines, by the best and brightest from Toxteth (just across the road) after dark. This is where the illustrii of Liverpool were laid to rest in the nineteenth century, after suitable procession down the processional ramp. Many of these headstones have now been gathered up and are used to line the sides of various paths. Perhaps Atilla the Hun had the right idea having himself buried in an unknown place in the bed of a river (the gravediggers being dispatched after the event (which included temporarily diverting the river) to make sure the secret was safe): that way one's grave never gets abused or misused.
The cathedral itself was huge and was very visible, the dark red sandstone brooding over the city. While very impressive, the place did not have a very sacred feel to it, inside or out. And the detailing of the interior was not quite right. The idea - reasonably sensible - was that the huge space and huge columns needed to be broken up with a bit of ornament, to be given a bit of life. But it doesn't work. You just have a modest clutter of stone bits and peices breaking up the lines of the place. The worst offender being the bridge built across the nave towards the other end from the alter. The lady chapel was on a more human scale (perhaps the size of Guildford cathedral - a place which I suppose to be of a similar age) and did have a much more sacred feel to it - enhanced when we visited by a black lady quietly singing in it. All in all we thought that the thing must be a bit of an embarassment to the ecclesiastical authorities, a giant red elephant. No wonder it took so long to finish the thing - having been started in 1900 or so it was not finished until the late seventies. But as with other public sector ventures, very hard to stop once you have started no matter how silly the thing has come to seem.
Which prompts the further wonder about what will happen to my late gang - CJIT - when a large chunk of what is now the Home Office is gobbled up into a Justice Ministry. Will it be shafted by all the people in DCA whom it has been annoying over the years? The greasy pole will be in constant use while it is all sorted out!
# posted by Jim @ 12:49 AM 
