Among Stones and Silence: My Love of Wandering Graveyards and Churches

There’s a peculiar kind of peace I only ever find in graveyards. Step through lichen-covered gate posts, and the world seems to quiet itself—traffic noise dulled, time itself softened. I’ve loved wandering among weathered gravestones, crumbling churchyards, and the hushed interiors of old parish churches since I was a child. It feels like a conversation with history, with the lives that came before us written not in books, but in stone, moss, and silence.

The Language of Stone

Each gravestone has its own voice. Some are bold and elaborate, Victorian angels with wings stretched heavenward. Others are so worn that only faint initials remain, names lost to centuries of wind and rain. I often try and read the lettering on old graves, often pausing to imagine the lives behind them: a blacksmith, a farmer’s wife, a child taken too young. It’s humbling and grounding—a reminder of how fleeting our own stories are, and to live your happiest life while you're here.

Churches as Time Capsules

English churches are much more than places of worship. They’re time machines. Step inside an old church, your footsteps echo, cool and shadowy, and you’re walking where villagers have gathered for nearly a thousand years. I love noticing the small details: carved pew-ends shaped like faces, medieval graffiti etched by restless hands, fragments of stained glass that still glow with jewel-like light and reflect rainbows onto the ground. Each parish church tells its own story—not just of faith, but of community, of endurance.

Seasons of the Churchyard

Graveyards are never the same twice. In spring, primroses and daffodils cluster around leaning headstones. In summer, bees hum lazily among wildflowers, the cemeteries rich with life. Autumn brings crisp air and leaves that scatter like confetti across graves - my favourite time of year. And winter—bare trees, stone dusted with frost, silence so profound it feels holy. I love walking them all, in every season, each mood giving a different feel to the stones.

Why I Wander

Some people find graveyards unsettling. I don’t. For me, they’re comforting—spaces where the present brushes up against eternity, where beauty and sorrow coexist. Wandering among them slows me down, makes me notice the small things, reminds me to live while I can.

I’ve visited many graveyards and cemeteries throughout the country, and in different countries too. The top 3 that stand out for me are:

Eyam - The plague village. A sleepy, eerie little village in Derbyshire, not far from where I grew up. The last time I visited it was a misty Sunday morning, the cobwebs were sparkly with dew drops, and it was just the perfect moody morning, graveyard wandering weather. In 1665, when the plague arrived on a bundle of cloth apparently, the villagers made an extraordinary decision: they chose to quarantine themselves rather than flee, sparing the surrounding communities but condemning many of their own. More than 250 people died. Their courage and sacrifice linger in the very air of the place. 

Among the headstones are names tied forever to the plague. Some are heartbreakingly clustered, marking entire families lost within weeks of each other. The most poignant for me is a family grave, where a mother buried her husband and six children, alone. To stand there is to feel the weight of unimaginable grief, but also resilience—she survived.

Elsdon - St. Cuthbert’s Church and Graveyard Located at the heart of the village of Elsdon, Northumberland. After I discovered this place some years ago on a hike, it's somewhere I have visited many times since. It's so peaceful every time I have been, almost eerily quiet! The church is thought to date originally from the 14th century. It’s a Grade I listed building, historically tied to the flight of the monks of Lindisfarne who, around 875 AD, reportedly rested with the relics of St. Cuthbert at this spot.

During 1877 restoration work, nearly 1,200 skeletons—including around 996 intact skulls—were uncovered beneath the church floor, believed to be layered burials over centuries, possibly including casualties from the Battle of Otterburn (1388)  .

In the bell turret, a small hidden chamber held three horse skulls, believed inserted perhaps for acoustic purposes, structural resonance, or ritual significance  .

The entrance pillars bear deep grooves—likely from sharpened weapons by Border Reivers, attesting to the turbulence of the region  .

Inside the church, you’ll find a rare Roman tombstone detailing a soldier’s entire career—a unique artifact bridging eras.

The yard also contains examples of medieval grave covers (shears motif, skull and crossbones) emblematic of local funerary art and attitudes toward mortality  .

Père-Lachaise - I visited Paris a few years ago, it was a solo trip, most people were asking "will you be going to see the Eiffel Tower lit up at night?" I said "Probably but I top of my list it to get to the Catacombs and Père-Lachaise Cemetery!" I got called weird, I am, I don't care! It was one of the only cemeteries I visited where I actually felt slightly off and on edge. It was a glorious sunny and warm morning in May, I got there early. There was nobody around really, a little black cat with white paws appeared. I had a little fuss of the cat and it literally disappeared, then as I wandered it kept appearing between gravestones! Pretty sure it was a supernatural cat. I bumped into a man from New Zealand who asked if I knew where Oscar Wilde's grave was, I was heading that way so he walked with me, asking me ALL the questions about England! He said was into dark tourism, so I told him so was I and asked if he'd been to the Catacombs, he asked me what that was.....I think I was into skelebobs a bit more than him 😂

Père-Lachaise was established in 1804 as the first garden-style municipal cemetery in Paris, Père-Lachaise was created to relieve overcrowded urban burial grounds and was inspired by English landscape cemeteries. Its name honours Père François de La Chaise, the Jesuit confessor to Louis XIV, whose retreat once stood on the site.

Spanning over 110 acres, it stands as both Paris’s largest cemetery and a beloved green space, home to over 5,000 trees

The gravesite styles are very diverse—ranging from simplistic headstones to grand mausoleums, rendered in Egyptian, Gothic, Renaissance, and Art Nouveau motifs.

There are many famous graves here, such as:  Chopin, Marcel Proust, Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison  I went hunting them when I visited.

England has thousands of these quiet places, hidden in villages, down narrow lanes, or tucked into city corners. I’ll never tire of exploring them, because each one is a new conversation, a new story waiting in the stones. That, and I am one kooky lady 😂🪦🦇