|
Gravestones Toppled
I was shocked to
read in the Edinburgh Evening News that many of the gravestones have
recently been declared unsafe, and that following failure to make contact
with descendants, over 500 of the gravestones have been pushed over and
now lie flat on the ground.
I visited
Warriston Cemetery today and photographed the result. It was worse
than I had expected. Many of the gravestones are lying face down, so
that visitors tracing their genealogy and others are no longer able to
read the names. In some cases the headstones have been broken!
Scenes in Warriston Cemetery - 25 January 2003
The Edinburgh
Evening News reports that the Council's reaction shows no respect for the
graves and has been disproportionate to the risk. [The action
follows the death of a child in a graveyard in England 3 years ago.]
Surely it would
have been better to find ways of making these gravestones safe, seeking
funding to do so, if necessary, rather than leave the cemetery in the
state it is today..
The very least we could expect is for the gravestones to be lowered
gently, and not meet the fate of those in pictures 3 and 4.
[For further comments on
the toppling of gravestones, see: Edinburgh Evening News
24 Jan 03, pp.1, 5, 10]
|
