Ahhh, the cosy childhood memory of Mother Goose, what could be more innocent? But where did Mother Goose come from and what darker societal secrets is she hiding?
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Afternoon in Abney Park Cemetery: Tea, Cake & Audio Walks
Abney Park cemetery offers a variety of guided walks throughout the year that are hosted by the Abney Park Trust, as well as local historians. In addition to these in-person guided walks, PhD researcher and cemetery historian Romany Reagan has written four audio walks through Abney Park that are available to be taken independently as part of her PhD project ‘Abney Rambles’. As opposed to traditional historical audio tours, these audio walks are artistic interactions with a selection of aspects of Abney Park cemetery presented as provocations to peek through different doors of perception to the various meanings the cemetery embodies.
We invite you to join Romany in the cemetery for an afternoon to take one (or all!) of these audio walks. Romany will be in the classroom from 1-4pm, just to the right when you enter the main Egyptian gates entrance from Stoke Newington High Street. She’ll be on hand to offer map routes for the various audio walks and answer any questions you may have. There will also be tea and cake to anyone who would like to stop by after they’ve taken the walks have a chat about both the audio and guided walks available in Abney Park.
Continue reading Afternoon in Abney Park Cemetery: Tea, Cake & Audio Walks
Audio Walk: Abney Rambles – Woodland Networks
Audio Download link: Woodland Networks
For this walk, enter Abney Park Cemetery from the wrought-iron gates entrance on Stoke Newington Church Street.
This audio walk is part tour of some of the veteran tree specimens in Abney Park Cemetery, but also part exploration of the unseen nonhuman networks at play in this ancient and diverse nature preserve.
Please use the attached map to see where all of the veteran tree specimens are in Abney, this walk will explore a selection of these ancient trees, but I encourage you to use this map to find your own ramble.
‘Cult of the Dead’ versus ‘Phobic of the Dead’: The role of Victorian mourning ephemera in death acceptance.
Guest-blogger Romany Reagan, PhD candidate at Royal Holloway, University of London, explores the practice of constructing mementos from the hair of deceased loved ones during the Victorian period.
Perhaps the most iconic attribute of the Victorian era is its perceived preoccupation with death and mourning. The Victorian ‘Cult of the Dead’, as it’s often been called, was not only housed in cemeteries, tombstones, horse-drawn hearses, and monuments. Mourning ephemera comprised various small portraits, mounted mourning cards, linen handkerchiefs with black borders, mourning fans of black silk, various items of mourning dress, mourning hair jewellery and art, post-mortem photography, and innumerable personal effects. Viewed through today’s values and aesthetics, these numerous personal objects are now historical rarities that are found in niche museums and personal ‘cabinets of curiosities’, which are the only places where these once commonplace and personal totems now receive due appreciation.
Montage of Victorian mourning Ephemera. Image courtesy…
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Tower Hamlets Cemetery Audio Walk: Siren Sea—All is Lost for She
My audio walk #SirenSea is now available on @FoTHCP Soundcloud!#cemetery #TowerHamletsCemeteryPark #audiowalks
This is a fairly short (12min) walk through Tower Hamlets Cemetery telling a love story of ancient woodland gods, a sea widow, her sailor love & the sea siren who stole him away………..
Audio Walk: Abney Rambles – Woodland Magick
Audio Download Link: Woodland Magick
For this walk, enter Abney Park Cemetery from the wrought-iron gates entrance on Stoke Newington Church Street.
This walk is a dark allegorical tale of what lies behind the uncanny mystery that envelops Stoke Newington – and lies beneath Abney Park Cemetery…
Photo by Michał Huniewicz
Independent audio walks: You can take these walks anytime you like!
I’ve received quite a few questions on when I am giving these audio tours next, so I thought it would be good to give some clarification on how to take these walks.
These aren’t guided tours at a set time; they are audio tracks you listen to as you walk through Abney Park Cemetery independently whenever you wish to! (As long as the park is open!)
The walks are guided in the sense I give directions on where to go within the audio tracks, but otherwise the journey is up to you as a private experience.
Please feel free to contact me with any other questions you may have: Romany.Reagan.2012@live.rhul.ac.uk
Audio Walk: Abney Rambles – Thoughts on Mourning
Audio download link: Thoughts on Mourning
For this walk, enter Abney Park Cemetery from the wrought-iron gates entrance on Stoke Newington Church Street.
This audio walk is a meditation on modern versus Victorian mourning practices. Interweaving quotes from then and now, with stories, the walk is set to the music of The Black Heart Procession, with exit music ‘Dance While the Sky Crashes Down’, by Jason Webley.
When completed, please take the time to fill out my short survey
Audio Walk: Abney Rambles—Love, Wrath, Death, Lions: A Performed History of Frank & Susannah Bostock
For this walk, enter Abney Park Cemetery from the Neo-Egyptian gates entrance on Stoke Newington High Street.
This audio walk is the performed life story of Frank and Susannah Bostock, a famous travelling circus and menagerie couple, buried in Abney Park Cemetery. Frank was a famous lion tamer, and the Bostocks were part of the founding members of Dreamland Amusement Park, Coney Island, New York.
This walk is a love story, but not a simple one.
When completed, please take the time to fill out my short survey
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/CGRML3B
I would like to thank my cast for the generous donation of their time and performances!
Cast:
Frank Bostock: Professor Richard Dennis
Susannah Bostock: Sam Edwards
Thomas Dyson, attorney: Gavin Kelly
Times journalist: Ronan Shields
Blackthorn & Stone 