Walking with the Snowman, London Bridge

Christmas markets are popping up all over the UK now. One of the best in London for Christmas 2019 was the Christmas by the River market, by London Bridge. The best part was the festive sculpture trail celebrating Raymond Briggs’ quintessential Christmas character, The Snowman.

The trail featured 12 giant Snowman sculptures, each with stunning designs and decoration relating to the song, ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’. Each snowman was created by a different artist, each unique statue placed at a different location throughout the London Bridge Christmas by the River market.

I managed to find all 12, though a couple were hard to find. Some of my favourite snowmen, 3 French hens and 4 calling birds -

6 geese a-laying and 7 swans a-swimming

8 maids a-milking, 9 ladies dancing -

10 lords a-leaping, 11 pipers piping -

There were also lots of stalls selling food and drink, crafts and things. -

And the tree outside the iconic City Hall -

See the official Walking with the Snowman website.

Winter solstic 2019

This year the winter solstice was on 22 December, at 4.19 am UK time.

The winter solstice occurs in December, and in the northern hemisphere the date marks the 24-hour period with the fewest daylight hours of the year. That is why it is known as the shortest day of the year, or the longest night of the year. There are 7 hours 49 minutes of daylight on the shortest day.

The winter solstice occurs at the minimum point for the northern hemisphere, when the Sun is lowest in the sky.

This is also the start of the astronomical winter. Although confusing it is also known as mid winter!
This year the winter has been unseasonably wet and there have been no good sunrises due to the clouds. This one was taken 10th Dec - 

This one on 18th Dec sun rays and mist -

At least on the solstice on the 22nd, the rain had finally stopped by dawn and it brightened somewhat.

Tower Hamlets cemetery (aka Bow Cemetery)

Tower Hamlets Cemetery, aka Bow Cemetery, is the 3rd of the Magnificent Seven London cemetries that I have visited. The first two are West Norwood Cemetery and Nunhead Cemetery.

The "Magnificent Seven" are seven private Victorian cemeteries in London, dating back to the 19th century.  They were built in a ring outside the centre of London in an attempt to help overcrowding in existing parish burial grounds.

Traditionally, people who died in London were buried in churchyards. But when the population of London doubled in the first half of the 19th century, these churchyards became overcrowded leading to epidemics and pollutants getting into the water supply, carried by the sewer rats.

In the 1830s, seven cemeteries were established around London. The third one I visited was Tower Hamlets in the London Borough of the same name. It is also known as Bow Cemetery as it is near Bow Church. It opened in 1841 and closed to new burials in 1966.

I didn't find it particularly interesting in terms of the graves and there are no "famous" people buried there. After the cemetery closed in 1966 it became overgrown and money had run out. It was proposed to clear the gravestones to make a grassed park, but public protests stopped this. In 1986 the Borough took over ownership and in 2001 the site was designated as a nature reserve. Today there is a lot of emphasis on nature trails to see the flora and fauna.

I visited in Dec so there were no flowers and not much to see in terms of seasonal flora etc.

The cemetery walls are grade II listed as well as 7 memorials. One listed memorial is for Joseph Westwood, he was connected to an ironworks company. He died in 1883. The memorial is made of Portland stone and takes the form of a decorated wayside cross consisting of a crocketed spire carried on four open arches with angle buttresses. Square plinth with stepped angle buttresses and recessed ogee inscription panels to each face (from Historic England). An ogee is a curved shaped like the letter S.

There is a war memorial dedicated to 190 people of Poplar who were killed in WW2. Will Crooks was the first Labour mayor of Poplar and MP for Woolwich. He died in 1921.

See more on Tower Hamlets Cemetery on Wikipedia which has a list of some of the notable burials. See also Friends of Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park.

The historic Bow Church -

Note this is not the church with the famous Bow Bells as mentioned in the nursery rhyme Oranges and Lemons. The great bell of Bow is actually in St Mary-le-Bow Church at Cheapside, near St Pauls Cathedral.

Gibraltar's Barbary Apes

Gibraltar is well known for its Barbary Apes. It is the only place in Europe to have wild monkeys. They are actually monkeys, despite being called apes. And these Barbary Apes or Barbary Macaques are only found in the wild on Gibraltar and in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. The word Barbary comes from the Berber people in Morocco.

There are several troops of apes living on the rock, numbering about 250 individuals. Occasionally some of them venture into town. They are all monitored and have frequent health checks and population controls. They are also fed and watered every day. They have a longer life span than those in Morocco.

The first troop I saw was outside St Michael's Cave. They mostly ignored visitors as they were well fed - there was a lot of food on the ground for them.

The next troop I saw was at a viewpoint. One obligingly posed for photos.

The next lot I saw was on the observation deck at the top of the cable car ride. One suddenly tried to
grab my backpack that I was wearing. I was a bit puzzled as I knew there was no food inside, so assumed it was just being cheeky and trying its luck. However the next moment it jumped onto my back. I tried unsuccessfully to shake it off but it was holding tight. It soon jumped off, sat down and I realised it had got 2 wrapped mints that had been in the small front pocket. The ape had unzipped this pocket and removed the sweets, thankfully leaving everything else in place. It then turned its back on me and ate the sweets. I'm amazed it had been able to smell the sweets from a distance.

There are plenty of signs up reminding visitors not to feed the apes, and warnings that the apes will
snatch plastic bags. But there was no sign about them unzipping backpacks! The thefts from bags is mentioned on Wikipedia.

I later saw this couple. They reminded me of an old married couple settled down in front of the tv,
sharing a bag of crisps. They had obviously stolen the crisps from a visitor.

Gibraltar is a British Overseas Territory. There is a legend that as long as the monkeys stay on Gibraltar, the territory will remain under British rule. 

Joseph Merrick, Elephant Man, City of London cemetery

Another visit to a London cemetery, but this time not one of the Magnificent Seven. I went to the City of London cemetery mainly to see the recently found grave of Joseph Merrick, the "Elephant Man".

I was surprised the cemetery is far from the City of London. It is near Epping Forest, close to Manor Park station, in northeast London.

Joseph Merrick was born in 1862. He had a skeletal and soft tissue deformity and was nicknamed the "Elephant Man" and became a Victorian curiosity and was paraded in freak shows. He was also a  medical curiosity and on his death his skeleton was kept at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, East London.

However according to author Jo Vigor-Mungovin, Merrick's soft tissue was buried in the City of London Cemetery after he died in 1890. She did a lot of research and found his death was listed in the cemetery records. More research led her to find the actual plot were Merrick's remains were almost certainly buried. The BBC has a good article on this. The unmarked grave was only found this year, 2019, 130 years after Merrick's death.

The grave is in plot 1771.

See more on Joseph Merrick on Wikipedia. And "The Elephant Man" , a 1980 film, starring John Hurt, and Anthony Hopkins, Anne Bancroft, John Gielgud

The City of London Cemetery holds heritage walks and nature trails.

West Norwood cemetery

Having an interest in old, historical cemeteries in London, it is my intention to visit the Magnificent Seven. This is an informal term applied to seven large private cemeteries in London, see more on Wikipedia. The first one I visited was Nunhead Cemetery.

The next to be ticked off the list was West Norwood cemetery. This is in the borough of Lambeth and was also known as the South Metropolitan Cemetery One of the first private landscaped cemeteries in London and was one of the first cemeteries in the world to use Gothic style.

The Gothic interior gates -

The cemetery was established in 1836 and has more than 42,000 graves. The cemetery is closed to new burials but the crematorium still operates, and cremation plots are still available. There are also catacombs, see more on Subterranea Britannica and Friends of West Norwood Cemetery who used to run occasional tours to the catacombs.

Some of the more elaborate memorials near the main entrance -

There are many prominent people buried in the cemetery, including doctors, engineers, scientists, builders etc. This is the mausoleum for Sir Henry Doulton's family. Doulton was the manufacturer of Royal Doulton pottery. The mausoleum is constructed of terracotta and pottery and is Grade II listed.

In the same area is a modern headstone to Mrs Beeton, famous for her 1861 work "Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management".

Conifer shading several graves -

These are near the Beetons' grave -

I missed the grave of Sir Henry Tate, sugar magnate and founder of London's Tate Gallery. This is the sarcophagus of Captain John Wimble on Ship Path, and is grade II listed. Wimble sailed to Bengal. The carving of the ship is rather elaborate -

The cemetery is also a site of nature conservation value.