Order of Druids

Tonge Cemetery in Bolton was opened in 1856 and used to be the town's main cemetery. It's Victorian part contains many good examples of cemetery symbolism and ornate and striking headstones. Here is the grave of Robert Lever Bailey whose stone was erected by voluntary subscriptions of the brethren of the Order of Druids society. Bailey had been secretary of the Bolton branch for some years. Click once on the image and then again for a closer look.

Southport's Lifeboat Disaster Memorial

On December 9, 1886, the Hamburg-registered barque, Mexico, went aground near Southport, Lancashire. The local lifeboat, Eliza Fearnley was launched but when it arrive, the lifeboat was struck by heavy seas and capsized.

Two hours later, it was found three miles along the coast from Southport at Birkdale. Fourteen of the sixteen crew had perished. Wikipedia recounts: The two survivors, Henry Robinson and John Jackson, were trapped under the boat after the capsize and only survived by freeing themselves, swimming out and clinging onto the keel of the boat, then walking miles back to their homes and raising the alarm. One of them had tried and failed to rescue other comrades who were still trapped under the boat. Amazingly, four other men from the Southport boat initially survived the disaster subsequently could not be saved.

A second lifeboat, Laura Janet from St Anne's, had been launched but that too was lost. It was found beached in the morning with three dead bodies hanging on the thwarts with their heads downwards. All thirteen crew members were lost. The disaster remains the worst suffered by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution with 27 dead. Remarkably, a third lifeboat from Lytham reached the Mexico and rescued all 12 crew. The memorial pictured below stands in Southport's Duke Street Cemetery.

Military Memorials in Gibraltar

Four different styles of Military headstones/memorials, spanning 1800 to 1918, photographed in Gibraltar

TB96 in collision with SS Tringa. Tringa torpedoes and sunk by U33, three week later

Ship sunk by U34 22 mile north of Alboran Island, Morrocco - eight killed

Wartime Memorial

This is a rather unusual memorial in Kensal Green cemetery. It commemorates those interred whose graves and monuments were totally destroyed  in the London Blitz. The second image is one of a number taken by the excellent photographer Fin Fahey showing bomb damaged memorials at Kensal Green. More of his work can be found HERE

Copyright Fin Fahey

Gibraltar North Front Cemetery 2

Here are three more views of Gibraltar's North Front Cemetery. The markings on the slides indicate my visit for 1991. Looking through more of the slides revealed I had taken a photograph looking down from the Rock and got a colleague to photography me standing among the graves. Note how close the cemetery is to the runway of Gibraltar Airport. I recall shooting one roll of colour transparency film and another of black and white. If I went there, today, with a camera equipped with a 16GB memory car, I would take hundreds of images - a great advance in technology, sadly unavailable to me at the time of my visit!

Gibraltar North Front Cemetery

Gibraltar's North Front Cemetery is the only graveyard still in use on the Rock. It was established in 1756 and is very large. I had an hour to kill before having to report for my flight at the adjacent airport and my host's very kindly took me to the cemetery. The last photograph in this post is taken from the Rock above and shows the extent of it. Oh, that I had known but time was pressing and I concentrated on recording many of the recumbent war graves. A few large memorials caught my eye and I ended up below ground in a small crypt that had just been emptied ready for reuse but that's another story!

Wikipedia's description is well worth reading and I wish I had known more about the cemetery before I went there. Details can be found HERE

Published under Creative Commons - thanks to Magnus Manske

Apprentice Stonemasons

Here is a photograph of apprentice stonemasons in Treorchy, Wales. Note the tools of their trade being held in their hands: