Who Lies Where: a Guide to Famous Graves (A Guardian book)

by Michael Kerrigan (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1998

  $3.27

  A tour of the dominions of the dead: the final resting places of the great and the good, the notorious and the downright nasty throughout the British Isles. As well as taking the reader through well-known sights such as the Glasgow Necropolis, St Paul's Cathedral in London, and Highgate Cemetery (where Karl Marx, George Elliot, Ralph Richardson and Christina Rosetti are buried) this book also visits places known mostly by association with one person: East Coker in Somerset, where T.S. Eliot is buried, or Cholsey in Oxfordshire, last resting place of Agatha Christie. The guide also contains information on the history of burial practices: the resurrectionists, plague pits, the use of quicklime to dissolve unwanted bodies, and promiscuous burial plots where so many people were interred together that the level of the ground rose - with disturbing consequences when heavy rain washed the topsoil away.

• Used

  Hardcover
  1995

  $3.27

  Organized regionally, county-by-county, this work lists the burial places of a vast array of people, from 10th-century monarchs to 20th-century football heroes. It includes well-known sites - Glasgow Necropolis, St Paul's Cathedral in London, Highgate Cemetery, home to Karl Marx, Ralph Richardson, Christina Rossetti and George Eliot - and places known generally only be association with a famous individual: Caldbeck in Cumbria, where huntsman John Peel fell; Choosey in Oxfordshire, where Agatha Christie's plot is found; East Coker in Somerset, where the Eliot family, including its most famous poetic son - T.S. is buried; and Harpenden, where Eric Morecambe is commemorated. As well as exploring sites linked to individuals, the guide details the burial practices of past times with examples of the Ressurrectionists' looting, of the plague pits and of gruesome collective burial plots.