Late September in London Town

While my two Texas friends were visiting, I went into London with them for a second day to do a bit of sightseeing. Some of it was familiar, like the Churchill Museum and Imperial War Rooms, but some of it was refreshingly new to me. We paid a visit to one of the famous Victorian cemeteries that are found around the (then) perimeter of the city. 

Winston's velour onesie jammies - love it!

I find the underground network of public and private rooms amazing, a place where important people and the work they were doing was kept safe during the Blitz.

We enjoyed lunch at a great little local pub, The Bull and Last.

Highgate Cemetery, one of the "Magnificent Seven" cemeteries established around the outskirts of central London in 1839 is home to some of the finest funerary architecture of the Victorian era. The section we toured, the east side, is spectacularly overgrown with trees, shrubs and flowers. It's reputed to be a haven for birds and small animals such as foxes.

The monuments above and below must have been popular vogue back in the day, because I saw them several times as we strolled through the grounds.

I found the ones both above and below to be quite interesting, not the usual cross or angel marking so many of the graves. Beneath the intriguing piano monument is one of the more notable folks buried in East Highgate, Karl Marx.

These final two burials quite poignant, as it's obvious someone is maintaining them. I couldn't locate any information for the person interred in the top pic bordered by tree trunks. However, the one below that is for a little girl named Eunice that died on Dec. 1, 1946. I can't help but wonder if there are any surviving family members for this long lost child that continue to keep the grave so tidy with fresh plantings.