Jet lag, graves and disappointment

27 October 2015

They say, as far as jet lag is concerned, east is a beast. This, it turns out, is true. Flying into the states and gaining five hours wasn’t too bad at all. After a couple of days waking up early we had it nailed. Flying back and losing those pesky hours again was a whole different matter. Perhaps if the clocks hadn’t gone back the weekend after we got home I’d have coped better. My poor body didn’t know whether it was coming or going, especially when it came to when to eat. This resulted in a full five days of lazing about feeling terminally confused and waking up in the middle of the night feeling hungry. Needless to say, apart from unpacking and laundry, very little got done.

There was a great deal of thinking about going out for a walk but no actually doing. The nearest I got to it was a drive over to town to change my Canadian and American dollars back to real money, a couple of walks up to the village for food shopping and another drive to Eastleigh to drop off a card and present for my granddaughter on her birthday. Drizzly, dull weather didn’t exactly help. Today, despite the grey looking sky, I decided it was now or never. If I didn’t get out soon I was in danger of losing the use of my legs.

Pining for the amazing colours of the Canadian autumn, I decided to drive over to the Common to see how the English Autumn compared. Obviously I was setting myself up for disappointment, especially on such a grey day but it was the best plan my still slightly addled brain could come up with. Of course, at the first rattle of car keys CJ decided he wanted to come too.

We parked up in Cemetery Road and began wandering rather aimlessly. Getting to the Common had been about as far as the plan went. The wandering led us to a side entrance of the old cemetery where the ground was covered with fallen leaves, the trees almost bare. When I left England, autumn had hardly started and now it looked as though it was all but over. Here and there a tree stood out but subtly, with nothing approaching the brilliance of the Canadian trees.

We wandered, stopping occasionally to look more closely at an interesting grave among the weathered stones leaning this way and that. A wooden cross, broken and as white as driftwood stood out but, with no inscription, we could only guess at the story behind it. The leaves crunched under our feet and the hundreds of graves called out to be noticed. It would have been easy to spend the whole morning stopping and reading the inscriptions, at least those that were not weathered away. Easy too to wander off the path and become lost in this sprawling graveyard, covering twenty seven acres and containing around seventeen thousand graves.

We’d been wondering rather aimlessly for about ten minutes when we came to a large stone gateway. This, it turns out, is actually the entrance gate and beside it was the superintendent’s lodge. Both were built in 1845 but the lodge is now a private dwelling. It’s hard to imagine living there with a garden full of graves. Framed in the Tudor style arch of the gate was the Church of England chapel, built in the 1840’s and one of three chapels in the cemetery. These days it’s no longer a chapel and is being used as a design studio. Artist, Peter Jarvis has a studio there and has painted some beautiful pictures of the cemetery, along with other local places of interest.

As this is part of Southampton Common, it took an act of Parliament to acquire the land and build the cemetery, making it one of the earliest cemeteries to be owned by a local council. It opened in 1846 taking up just ten acres of common land. In the 1860’s and 1880’s the area was expanded, taking another seventeen acres of common and this was where we’d been walking. Inside the gates things seemed far less haphazard with neatly clipped yews and clearer paths. We went in for a closer look.

There is a good reason this area looks neater than other parts of the cemetery. In the late 1980’s a survey of the flora was carried out and it was decided to maintain the grounds with the aim of preserving the diversity of the natural flora and fauna. The removal of invasive shrubs and saplings in some areas and a schedule of strimming that allows wildflowers to mature and set seed makes this a valuable wildlife reserve. Even so, the area around the chapels is slowly being restored to a more formal appearance. Surprisingly I spotted a rhododendron, still holding on to the odd flower and, around the green chapel door, one or two pink roses still blooming. It wasn’t what I’d expected at the end of October but this is a very sheltered spot, surrounded by walls and trees. In the summer it must be a colourful place to walk.

As you’d expect for a cemetery in a port city, many of the graves have a nautical theme with lots of anchors and the odd ship. There are, I’m told, even Titanic related graves but finding them amongst the chaos is another matter. We strolled, stopping now and then to look at graves that caught our eye. A couple of stones had thick wooden stems twined around them, probably ivy that had been cut back. Others were still clothed in living ivy.

Almost back at the gate again, CJ came upon the Pearce Memorial, made for banker, Robert Pearce, who died in 1861. The tall marble monument by  Richard Cockle Lucas tops a family vault containing Robert, his wife Hannah, son Henry and Henry’s wife Emily and is made up of three angels representing faith, hope and charity holding a draped urn above their heads. A small plaque told us this is a grade II listed monument.

Nearby was a mausoleum that reminded me of those we saw in Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. Large mausoleums are unusual in England and I’m told this is the only one in the cemetery. It was certainly an eye catching building with scroll topped columns on either side of the wooden doors and angels above the arch. The story behind it is strange and sad.

Araline Nicholas, daughter of local outfitter William Gamlen, needed special permission from Southampton Council to build such an unusual monument. She also needed permission to exhume the body of her only son, William, who’d died in his thirties in 1901, and been buried elsewhere in the cemetery with his father. Why she felt the need to do this is a mystery but the large sum of money left to her by her son certainly paid for it. In 1910 Araline also died and her daughter, also called Araline, having now inherited her late brother’s money, arranged for her mother to be buried alongside him. Now poor, unmarried Araline was alone in the world and it seemed she was destined to remain that way. Perhaps she visited the grave, unlocked the padlocks on those heavy wooden doors and sat inside to be close to her loved ones? Then, in 1928, when she was fifty eight, she met William Thomas Allen and married him. Within a few months she had died and William had her laid to rest with the rest of her family.

Back on Cemetery Road we headed towards the centre of the Common in search of some autumn colour. We did find some but, compared to the brilliance of the Canadian fall, it seemed muted to say the least. We did find swans on the Model Yachting Pond along with a mass of gulls. The swans were sheltering under the overhanging branches of an oak tree so we went around for a closer look. CJ was delighted that they stayed around and let him take photos. I took a few myself but, for once, I was the one waiting around while someone else took lots of pictures.

Eventually I managed to drag him away and we carried on along the path that runs through the centre of the Common. There was one more thing I wanted to show him before we headed back to the car. CJ is a fan of street art and although we’ve walked all over Bristol and London tracking down interesting graffiti, he’d never seen the Beyond Graffiti subway on the Common. The project began in 2002, when graphic designers Michael Flibb and Corbin Adler were asked to provide some interesting artwork for the paddling pool kiosk on the Common. They wanted to give local youths somewhere legitimate to showcase their artwork and provide an alternative to vandalism. The Beyond Graffiti project was born and I always enjoy visiting the subway to see the latest artwork.

As it turned out, Beyond Graffiti proved to be almost as disappointing as the autumn leaves. In the past I’ve seen some truly spectacular pieces there but today it was mostly badly executed, boring tags. There were a couple of half decent pieces but nothing like the beautiful paintings I’ve seen in the past. All in all it was a let down and we set off down the Avenue feeling deflated.

Close to the car park we did spot one lone maple that al last restored my faith in the English Autumn and, right beside the car, CJ noticed a large mushroom growing amongst the fallen leaves. It almost made me smile.