Walking in London, I saw this strange looking place. Beautiful ribbons, beads... looks almost festive.
Looks like any old derelict London site, stuck away in a little side street called Redcross Way, near trendy Borough Market. It's being marketed at present for a development called 'Landmark Court.' Apartments around here cost millions. See the part-built "Shard" (soon to be a major London office block landmark) through the ribbons tied to the gate? BUT.....
...this is a place wtih a sad and sinister story. It is Cross Bones graveyard in Southwark, London. A plaque on the gate makes it clear.
A hundred years or more ago, this bit of London wasn't all about luxury kitchens and organic balsamic vinegar. The prostitutes who plied their trade amongst the theatres and bear-gardens of Bankside, (they were called "Winchester Geese") and the local paupers and peasants and unfortunates, were all tipped into holes in the unconsecrated ground right here when they died. Many of these outcasts probably had no choice but to live like they did., and there's a group of local people who don't think this pathetic place should become office or glossy apartment development.
They want it to be a memorial garden to the people who were shunned and sidelined in their lifetimes and after their death. They just feel we should think about them, these people who once lived their whole lives right where we live, but in a very different world.
Read more about it here.
...this is a place wtih a sad and sinister story. It is Cross Bones graveyard in Southwark, London. A plaque on the gate makes it clear.
A hundred years or more ago, this bit of London wasn't all about luxury kitchens and organic balsamic vinegar. The prostitutes who plied their trade amongst the theatres and bear-gardens of Bankside, (they were called "Winchester Geese") and the local paupers and peasants and unfortunates, were all tipped into holes in the unconsecrated ground right here when they died. Many of these outcasts probably had no choice but to live like they did., and there's a group of local people who don't think this pathetic place should become office or glossy apartment development.
They want it to be a memorial garden to the people who were shunned and sidelined in their lifetimes and after their death. They just feel we should think about them, these people who once lived their whole lives right where we live, but in a very different world.
Read more about it here.
