- Feb 5, 2002
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Among London’s Catholic dead, life is to be found.
LONDON — A holy and wholesome thought it is to pray for the dead, especially so during November, for this is the month in which the Church calls us to pray for the faithful departed.
London has only two Catholic cemeteries.
In the northwest of the city, St. Mary’s Cemetery, Kensal Green is the older. Opened in 1858, it is also the better known. The other is St. Patrick’s Cemetery. It lies to the east of London in the suburban district of Leytonstone. Estimates vary, but, since that cemetery’s 1868 opening, it is reckoned buried there are more than 180,000 Catholics.
Many lie in communal graves. In earlier times, these graves were known as “paupers’ graves.” They held multiple occupants, often unknown to each other in life.
Rarely were these “paupers’ graves” marked. The dead interred there were to be as quickly forgotten by the world as in life they had been overlooked. Beside these anonymous communal graves are other resting places, many still tended by loved ones, as they have been through generations. These graves are marked by headstones with incised lettering.
Today, however, many are defaced by the elements, now only possessing withered half-obliterated lettering, with any meaning long since lost to ancient rains — so much so that, to the naked eye, there seems little by way of record as to who lies buried there. These souls, in a sense all too real, are known only to God.
Continued below.
www.ncregister.com
LONDON — A holy and wholesome thought it is to pray for the dead, especially so during November, for this is the month in which the Church calls us to pray for the faithful departed.
London has only two Catholic cemeteries.
In the northwest of the city, St. Mary’s Cemetery, Kensal Green is the older. Opened in 1858, it is also the better known. The other is St. Patrick’s Cemetery. It lies to the east of London in the suburban district of Leytonstone. Estimates vary, but, since that cemetery’s 1868 opening, it is reckoned buried there are more than 180,000 Catholics.
Many lie in communal graves. In earlier times, these graves were known as “paupers’ graves.” They held multiple occupants, often unknown to each other in life.
Rarely were these “paupers’ graves” marked. The dead interred there were to be as quickly forgotten by the world as in life they had been overlooked. Beside these anonymous communal graves are other resting places, many still tended by loved ones, as they have been through generations. These graves are marked by headstones with incised lettering.
Today, however, many are defaced by the elements, now only possessing withered half-obliterated lettering, with any meaning long since lost to ancient rains — so much so that, to the naked eye, there seems little by way of record as to who lies buried there. These souls, in a sense all too real, are known only to God.
Continued below.
Hitchcock, Jack the Ripper and a Catholic Cemetery
Among London’s Catholic dead, life is to be found.
