pots and text: no new thing

Another visit to West Norwood Cemetery, for this year’s Curious Trail: this time in the Columbarium and the Greek Orthodox part of the cemetery.

It’s a salutary reminder that pots and text have been important to people for a long time: there’s an amazing variety of shape, material, font, calligraphy there, including fantastically archaic engraved ones – I couldn’t quite make out the words, but there are some.

Last week I was struck by some stories of the Greek community: there’s a Greek Orthodox section in West Norwood, amazingly full of classical pediments, but crammed together: luckily also still square – there’s subsidence in many parts, the ground heaving and toppling the monuments in a rather disturbing way.

I’ve almost decided what my piece for the Trail will be: based on the Greek sisters killed in 1942 and the poem by Edith Sitwell – Still falls the rain. The Trail will open at the end of June – I’ll post details nearer the time.