Category: News

‘Crossbones Graveyard’ book launch

 
This Saturday 22nd November 2-4pm 

The launch of Max Reeves photo-book charting 20 years of magical works which reclaimed the once derelict post-industrial site and transformed it into a garden of remembrance for sex workers and outcasts. A book of portals!
 
Soon after 2.30pm – John Constable aka John Crow guves a talk on Crossbone Graveyard and performance from ‘The Southwark Mysteries’ followed by the book-launch – limited edition of 100 copies, signed by the authors. 
 
The event (2-4pm) also features Belles of London Town Morris, Pearly Kings and Queens, and poetry by Steve Micalef.
 
The exhibition itself is open until 6pm (from now until the 26th) and is well worth a visit in its own rite! Crossbones features in the film and Ben Edge’s portrait of ‘Crow with Goose’ is part of it all.
 
Free Event All Welcome
 
The Book is also available to buy here:

Cross Bones & The Children of Albion

On Saturday 22nd Novemeber 2025, John Constable / Crow is giving a talk/performance about Crossbones Graveyard to help launch Max Reeves’ book of Crossbones photographs. This is part of Ben Edge’s exhibition of paintings which runs from 6th to 26th November in the wondrous Fitzrovia Chapel

ALBION AWAKENS

FREE EVENT on SATURDAY 22ND NOVEMBER from 2PM – 4PM

Fitzrovia Chapel, Fitzroy Place, 2 Pearson Square, London W1T 3BF

  • Belles of London City Morris Dancing
  • Pearly Kings And Queens
  • Performance by John Constable/Crow of Crossbones Graveyard
  • Book launch (and book signing) of ‘Crossbones Graveyard’
    by Max Crow Reeves, John Constable/Crow and Katy Nicholls/Kaos

FREE EVENT JUST TURN UP TO THE FITZROVIA CHAPEL by 2.30pm on Saturday 22nd November 2025
FITZROVIA CHAPEL INFO HERE: https://www.fitzroviachapel.org (it’s well worth a visit in itself!)

EXHIBITION PROGRAMME HERE: https://www.benedge.co.uk/

The day after that, Goose willing, JC will be conducting the Cross Bones Vigil at 7pm on 23rd November – which is also the 29th anniversary of Goose Night, when The Goose revealed ‘The Southwark Mysteries’ and the secret history of Crossbones to John Crow.

The Halloween of Cross Bones

The Halloween of Cross Bones was a magical ritual performed every 31st October from 1998 to 2010 in which the medium John Crow channels the spirit of The Goose to reveal the secret history of Crossbones Graveyard. 
 
The Halloween of Cross Bones XIII (2010) completed the cycle of 13 annual rituals to reclaim Crossbones Graveyard as holy ground for sex workers and outcasts…

This clip features Crow’s Initiation and ‘The Song of The Goose’ sung by Michelle Watson (Goose on fire!) with Michelle Makka (Tantric priestess for Halloween#13).

Filmed /edited by Andy Lockwood aka Dr Wot and Rosemary Walbancke (2010)
 
Veterens of The Warp and the south London conscious party scene will recognise the brick cavern that was once Deep Blue in The Drome (also the Venue for The Synergy parties and much more)
 
After the completion of the cycle, some of the rituals associated with The Halloween of Cross Bones were adopted at the 23rd October ‘portal to Halloween’ Vigil.

Since John Crow completed his mediumistic work at Crossbones, Halloween has been marked by individual acts of love and remembrance.

Friends of Crossbones may like to visit the gates this coming 31st October, to bear silent witness to the spirits of our outcast dead. If two or more are gathered together, you may like to perform the ‘Ancestor Souls’ invocation. It is traditionally spoken aloud with one speaking and the others echoing the words in their own time, creating a ripple effect… 
 
 
SAMHAIN
 
Here, the veil between the worlds
dissolves:
the living, the dead
share the brew, break the bread.
Ancestor souls
converse and commune,
this samhain night,
by the light of a bone-
white
moon.
 
THE HALLOWING OF CROSS BONES YARD
 
Here where the bones are crossed
be hallowed ground.
Here let the names that were lost
be found.
 
Shut out in days of old,
the outcast dead…
Here bring them in from the cold
to be watered and fed.
 
Here let the ties that bind
against forgetfulness
light candles, build shrines
in the wilderness.
 
(words from ‘Spark In The Dark‘ by John Constable)

Crossbones wins GOLD in London In Bloom, Walled Garden category

Yay! Cross Bones! Not only is it the world’s first holy ground and garden of remembrance dedicated to sex workers and outcasts! Not oly is it a place of healing, community and creativity. It’s also being recognised as an urban ecological resource, a sanctuary for the inner city’s diverse flora and fauna.

London In Bloom, Category Winner. GOLD in the Walled Garden category. Crossbones Graveyard.

One more way in which Cross Bones’ spiritual identity – as the embodiment of love, forgiveness, reconciliation and restoration – is invested in whatever future humanity has left…

Photo by Jennifer Cooper. More about Bankside Open Spaces Trust‘s work at Crossbones here:

Crossbones Graveyard & Garden of Remembrance
❤

THIS SAMHAIN NIGHT

These texts will be familiar to those who’ve attended The Halloween of Cross Bones (1996-2010 and 2015-16) or the October 23rd Vigils which are now held in its place.

Ancestor Souls’ (originally invoked at The Halloween of Crossbones and now at the 23rd October Vigils) is here combined with ‘The Hallowing of Cross Bones Yard’ – to music by Mark Carroll aka Arka (Ominous) – in Martin Scooby’s two minute short version of a full-length 30 minute Samhain mix in the pipeline. Scooby is working with footage filmed around his native Whitby.

SAMHAIN

Here, the veil between the worlds
dissolves:
the living, the dead
share the brew, break the bread.
Ancestor souls
converse and commune,
this samhain night,
by the light of a bone-
white
moon.

THE HALLOWING OF CROSS BONES YARD

Here where the bones are crossed
be hallowed ground.
Here let the names that were lost
be found.
 
Shut out in days of old,
the outcast dead…
Here bring them in from the cold
to be watered and fed.
 
Here let the ties that bind
against forgetfulness
light candles, build shrines
in the wilderness.
 
(words from ‘Spark In The Dark’ by John Constable)

This Halloween take a giant step into another dimension

John Crow writes: ‘Although I’m no fan of AI, I see how my old friend Martin Scooby is using it as a creative tool to help realise the techno-pagan projects he’s been working on for more than 25 years. This one combines my ‘Samhain’ invocation to Mark Carroll’s (Ominous) soundtrack with a trailer for Scooby’s ‘KUNDALAND’ animations set in a magic circus for inner journeys, operated by an enigmatic Gurdjieff-like Magus called Kundabuffer. A while back I wrote an episode which Scooby is now working on. It’s titled ‘Bone White Moon’  ❤

BBC Charles Parker prize-winning feature

If you haven’t yet heard Grace Reeve’s Charles Parker prize-winning feature about Crossbones on Radio 4 , you should still be able to catch it. I listened to it again just now. Some of it is already slightly dated but overall it still sounds good. Only don’t wait too long! The programme went up on BBC Sounds on 16 August 2024 and it says it’s “available for over a year”.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0021xv3

The Shrine

OLD NEWS! Eleven years ago today (12/08/2014) saw the moving of Cross Bones gates/shrine to re-align them with the outcasts’ burial ground. Photo by Jennifer Cooper shows Katy Kaos and John Crow on-site to ensure that not a single ribbon, totem or memento was damaged in their moving. The guys with the digger understood the sacredness of what they were doing. And, though we’d never asked for them to be moved, the change opened up a window onto our invisible Garden, which until then had been hidden from passers by, and presaged the opening of the public Garden of Remembrance for sex workers and outcasts in 2016, in association with Bankside Open Spaces Trust

❤

NEW NEWS! NO NEWS! Rumours that the land to the north of the graveyard has been sold are unfounded! Nothing has changed. The development scheduled for the adjacent land has been delayed – again! – that’s all. Meanwhile, archaeologists on that site have unearthed a Roman Villa and temple shrine – just as The Goose said they would! 

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