Hidden away behind the Londis convenience store, Sepulchres Cemetery is overlooked by many people in Jericho - even those who, like myself, pass it every day. I didn't discover it until my friend Roman showed me one evening a few months ago. It's a great secret. At the end of the path, the noise from the traffic and the people hanging around outside Pepper's burgers dims; the green envelopes you in a spongey press of colour. The grass is overgrown in many places, especially down towards the bottom where the gravestones back on to Lucy's factory. On sunny days, sunbeams dash through the windows from the Oxford canal on the other side of the building. I think Lucy's is an old iron works that used to make library shelves and those pavement boxes that house the phone wires. Despite the broken windows, it's still in use - mainly for storage, by the looks of it. It's far from an eyesore.
Wednesday, 29 June 2005
Sepulchres Cemetery, Jericho
Hidden away behind the Londis convenience store, Sepulchres Cemetery is overlooked by many people in Jericho - even those who, like myself, pass it every day. I didn't discover it until my friend Roman showed me one evening a few months ago. It's a great secret. At the end of the path, the noise from the traffic and the people hanging around outside Pepper's burgers dims; the green envelopes you in a spongey press of colour. The grass is overgrown in many places, especially down towards the bottom where the gravestones back on to Lucy's factory. On sunny days, sunbeams dash through the windows from the Oxford canal on the other side of the building. I think Lucy's is an old iron works that used to make library shelves and those pavement boxes that house the phone wires. Despite the broken windows, it's still in use - mainly for storage, by the looks of it. It's far from an eyesore.
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I happened to be driving on the Marston road travelling north from Headington hill junction, passing the new Islamic centre, when I stopped and went immediately down a narrow lane just beyond the building site, and arrived at a mill house and an entrance into the Parks. Not a 100 yards along the path across a narrow stream on the right was standing a heron, calmly blinking at me. Magical
ReplyDeleteYour experience reminds me of the moment in the film Stand By Me, where Gordie (played by Wil Wheaton), encounters a tame deer on the train tracks in a rare moment of solitude during his summer hike with friends, just yards away from where he is sitting, despondent. They stare at each other for a timeless moment before the deer runs off, startled.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your anecdote (in the film and Stephen King's novel, Gordie doesn't tell his friends. The first time he mentions it to anyone else is when he writes it / narrates it in the movie).
Don't you think the new Islamic centre is a terrifically exciting building? Just a shame it's so marginalized on Marston Road: the Islamic slightly off-centre.