click here for full BBC report – Crossbones: Historical London burial ground ‘saved for decades’
The future of a historical cemetery in south London has been secured for decades following a deal reached by developers, Transport for London (TfL) and local campaigners.
‘A local group, Friends of Crossbones, worked to preserve the graveyard together with Bankside Open Spaces Trust (BOST), and in 2014, a public garden of remembrance was opened, dedicated to those on the margins of society.’
click here for Southwark News report – ‘Crossbones Saved: A Tribute To Our Pooer Ancestors’
‘… People also adorned the gates of the graveyard with ribbons, part of what archaeologist Don Henson called the “active commemoration” of the prostitutes who may or may not be buried at the site’.
“HMS Belfast and Southwark Cathedral have associations who support the work of those sites, but the heritage narrative is controlled by the owners of each site,” he wrote in the 2014 book Who Needs Experts?
“At Crossbones there is no site ownership or even management; there are merely acts of commemoration. As a result, Crossbones is the most affective [sic] heritage site in Southwark, even if it is the least recognised, least designated and least like a heritage asset.
“It is the one place in the area where purely local significance is really evoked, and where the lives of people in the past can be celebrated and remembered. Without physical structures to distract the mind, it can be a site of quiet contemplation and communion with past people.”
