My first Nunhead Cemetery Open Day was in 2008, although I claimed here it was a year earlier. Last year, of course, nothing happened, and even this time round it's been pushed back from its usual May date to this weekend. The chapel is fenced off, with no information as to whether this is due to Covid or general dilapidation; and I get the impression that the Friends of Nunhead (who are still restoring the East Lodge as they have been for several years now) would really rather you didn't put your life and their funds and perhaps liberty at risk by going wandering around the overgrown parts of the cemetery in search of picturesque monuments, so several entrances to the woods are blocked with brambles or stacks of wood. These are no serious barrier if you are properly equipped, but I wasn't. Still, I was surprised that I still managed to find things I hadn't seen before. Just behind the chapel is a house-like mausoleum with its pitched roof on pillars, surrounded by tumbledown tombstones; and a few yards from that is an area scattered with small monuments each about nine inches square, and clearly moved there in a group. You could, were you so disposed, abscond with one, which of course I wasn't.
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