York Cemetery (not as morbid as it sounds)

I've been meaning to visit York Cemetery for a while now and today I finally got round to it. The cemetery website site states: 'York Cemetery: A fun place to spend an afternoon, a beautiful place to spend eternity', which I found a rather amusing summary but on reflection fairly accurate I suppose. This was another place that surprised me with its size and you would probably need an hour or so to walk all its paths (if you can work out which you've already been along).

A landscaped part

Unsurprisingly there are rows and rows of graves and the paths lead you up and down these. There's a combination of grassed and wooded areas, and some parts are really overgrown and the gravestones are hidden under tangles of brambles and behind tall grasses, then occasionally among the plant chaos you come across a small clearing where a more recent grave is situated. These overgrown areas don't actually detract from the appearance of the cemetery, well not in my opinion, they actually give it a rather 'Secret Garden' air. In fact the whole place has a rather secluded feel to it, though that could be because it was a rather damp Winter day and no one else was around.

An overgrown section

 Considering it is a 'Garden of Death' there's a lot of life in the cemetery. As well as varied plant life, both the wild, overgrown sections and the nicely landscaped sections, there are lots of birds to be seen flitting between the cemetery's many trees. We spotted some Chaffinches, Bullfinches, Magpies, Blue Tits and Blackbirds although if you look carefully there are probably many more species to be seen. We also spotted a black cat lurking around the gravestones, seemed rather fitting. There were plenty of spring flowers popping up as well, most notably the snowdrops.

Winter Snowdrops

 So despite it's rather depressing nature York Cemetery is a nice place for a quiet walk round. It's not too far from the city centre (probably about 15mins walk) and there's parking close by at Kent Street car park (about £1.20 per hour) near the Barbican Centre.

Official Website: http://www.yorkcemetery.org.uk/index.php