Step inside the gates of Abney Park and you find yourself in an eerie and mysterious overgrown graveyard where you can escape from the incessant noise of Stoke Newington.
In just a few moments after entering Abney Park, you can imagine that you have been transported back in time to when people travelled by foot or on horseback along these lanes with names like Wilson Ride and West Boundary Ride.
Ferns creep across the drier, shadier areas and dead trees are left to rest on the ground where they provide food and shelter to many different creatures and a home for fungi and insects, essential links in the chains of bio diversity that provide nourishment for flora and fauna.
The lanes lead deeper into this sanctuary for wildlife, with the deepest shades of green of the plants that spread over the whole site. Only the sound of birdsong and the rustle of leaves can be heard. The air is filled witht he powdery scent of cow parsley and the ground swells up and is shifting the surface so that the trees and gravestones lean this way and that.
The rides bend and fork so that it is impossible to see further along and it is easy to lose any sense of direction and to imagine a scene of Gothic horror just around the corner with black horses pulling a hearse and men with top hats and flowing capes.
And you may find yourself going round and round in circles, coming back to a sight you noticed a little earlier and you wonder if you are going to be trapped in here for a very long time.
The ground swells up, shifting the surface, with tombstone and trees leaning this way and that. The paths become more and more narrow until they become tunnels through which only foxes can go.
A fox tunnel
All around there are other creatures hiding, with bats and owls in the trees. Below them ivy creeps across the ground, their leaves shining even on a grey day. Perhaps the prowling foxes have awoken a Victorian parlour maid who sleeps here, still witht he duster in her hand.
Ivy polished to perfection
Nature can be kind. Across a cold hard slab of stone under which someone was sleeping, a blanket of moss had been arranged across it.
A soft blanket of moss
This cemetery is a place of death - but also of life. Elm trees across the country were devastasted by a deadly disease some years ago but here Elm suckers sprout from the trees that were planted here a hundred years before the Victorians buried their dead.
They designed this cemetery as a botanical garden and arboretum - many of the trees have survived to this day. Native oaks, hornbeam and hawthorn reach out from the sides of the lanes. Those who came before gifted us this rich treasure of nature.
Even Elm trees are growing suckers here. They may not grow into mature trees but they are signs of life, especially welcome as nearly every one across the country died from Dutch Elm Disease half a century ago.
On a windy day watch how the tall trees sway dramatically from side to side and yet others remain bolt upright as though they are the ones who are determined to remain on guard – silent and still, in respect for the dead.
And in spring, bluebells arrive to remind us that in nature life is never ending.
Bus 276 or Stoke Newington Station
East London map and North London map
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