The Hardy Tree is a centuries-old ash tree surrounded by a radiating circle of densely-packed headstones. But why was it created?
The Hardy Tree
Tag: Graves
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.
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."
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’.
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.
William Mackenzie’s Liverpool Pyramid
The idea of a hunched poker-playing corpse inside a pyramid has a undeniable more public appeal.
A Trip to Avebury Church: Henge Not Included
Sitting in the metaphorical shadow of Avebury’s mystical stone circle is the little modest structure of St James' Church.
“I decided to hide Charlie Chaplin’s body and solve my problems…”
On 12th December 1978, Roman Wardas, a 24-year old Polish refugee took to the stand in Switzerland, accused of stealing Chaplin’s body.
Andrew Hyslop; Covenanter, Martyr.
One postcard lead to a story of a murdered covenanter who ended his days in a field in Dumfriesshire
Burials & Beyond 