As much as the Victorians revelled in beauty and sentimentality, they really were a bunch of morbid sods at heart.
The Hangman’s Locket
Tag: Death
The Ghost Clown of Flaybrick Cemetery
‘There’s a clown in my graveyard, what am-ah-gonna-do?’ the people of Birkenhead once yelled in the early 1990s. Or at least they would have done if they were particularly big UB40 fans.
Jacques Cazotte and the Dinner Party of Terror
In 1788, one year before the Reign of Terror began, a writer and would-be mystic was at a dinner party. Jacques Cazotte was a man of standing and was dining with the great and good aristocrats of France, poised to spoil everyone’s appetites.
The Car Park Grave of Mary Ellis
Beneath the tarmac of Loews Theater car park in New Brunswick lie the remains of Mary Ellis. For the last 193 years, she has occupied a prime parking spot; a strange conclusion to a romantic and tragic life.
The Weirdest Epitaph in America: Sterling Hallard Bright Drake
"‘An idealist and a dreamer, he died of loneliness and a broken heart, searching for a shrine he never found."
Going Out in Style! Ghana’s Fantasy Coffins
Fantasy, figurative or proverbial coffins (abebuu adekai), are unusual, transient memorials, being elaborate representations of the deceased’s interests, dreams and achievements.
“I did not give them willingly”: The Friesthorpe Window
A small rural church in Friesthorpe, Lincolnshire holds one of the most poignant memorials to the sacrifices of war in the form of a beautiful stained glass window.
Ye Olde Eco-Burial: The Trapdoor Coffin
In the 16th and 17th centuries, plenty of rural parishes in Scotland utilised a communal coffin of sorts called a ‘common mortkist’, ‘bier’ or ‘parish coffin’.
The Tiny Grave of Tom Thumb
According to local legend, the Tom Thumb of Tattershall measured just over 18 inches tall and had reached the grand old age of 101 upon his death in 1620.
Nanette Stocker, the Smallest Woman in the Kingdom
Nanette (incorrectly recorded as ‘Nanetta’ on her stone) is a forgotten music hall star and little person who died with a huge following.
Burials & Beyond 