MORTALITY, DEATH & BEYOND A Guided Tour of West Norwood Cemetery with Caroline Swan Sunday 1st October 2023 at 11:00 am Amidst the sombre shadows and melancholic whispers that drift through the labyrinthine pathways of West Norwood, a realm veiled in gothic grandeur awaits. Within its hallowed gates, time is frozen, and the echoes of the past resonate with every step, revealing tales of love, loss, and the eternal quest for meaning. Once revered as a sanctuary for the departed and the living alike, West Norwood emerged from the depths of Victorian London in 1837. With an air of aristocratic reverence, it swiftly earned its place among the illustrious Magnificent Seven cemeteries, becoming a haven where souls sought solace beneath the watchful gaze of towering monuments. Join Caroline for an exploration of some of this wonderful cemetery's most cherished and surprising monuments, and how shifting - and enduring - attitudes to life, death, and what lies beyond have shaped the cemetery and its memorials for almost two hundred years. Tickets £12 including a 20% donation toward a host of restoration projects at West Norwood Cemetery Caroline Swan Caroline Swan is a London-based historian and author of the Flickering Lamps blog. She writes about the histories behind often-familiar buildings, parks and - of course - graveyards: a single grave or an unusual street name can often reveal strange, moving, and sometimes even disturbing stories about the past. Caroline is also currently working towards a PhD in London History at Birkbeck, University of London.