Arnos Vale Cemetery in Bristol
I have been meaning to visit Arnos Vale Cemetery for some time. You might think it sounds a bit morbid to visit a cemetery when you are travelling but they hold so much history and interesting stories.
This cemetery in Bristol is 170 years old and 45 acres, there are around 3000 graves. It is currently run by a charity who offer tours of the cemetery to help with the upkeep.
I did a Murder, Mayhem and Mystery tour where I learnt about murders, thieves, suicide and ghosts. It was an interesting tour and I heard stories about Bristol and its people that I wasn’t aware of. Arnos Vale Cemetery has a few different tours check out their events page to see what is happening.
Like with all the tours I go on, I am not going to tell you all the stories otherwise it is not worth you going on the tour but this is a interesting tour if you are a Bristolian, you may already know of some of the tales.
We learnt about local businessmen who had been involved in bribery with beer of all things I wonder how many people would vote for a politician in exchange for a few beers nowadays.
We heard about executions that used to take place in the city and the people who did the executions as well as the victims of crimes that took place in Bristol.
It was an enjoyable tour, it would have been great if it was a little spookier but our tour guide said for health and safety reasons they can’t have characters jumping out at us in case someone had a heart attack but I would have absolutely loved that maybe they could do a scare attraction at Halloween warning people.
Would you think of going to a cemetery for a walk or a nature trail? I must admit it wouldn’t have been at the top of my list for a walk but after visiting Arnos Vale cemetery in Bristol it is a place I will now be recommending as somewhere to visit whilst in Bristol. You can also do a self-guided tour there is more information on the website.
I have visited a few cemeteries on my travels, and I have a post where some top travel bloggers tell us about cemeteries around the globe. I used to think it was a little disrespectful to go for a nosey in a cemetery, but they hold so much history as they are of course peoples final resting place so why not.
Cemeteries are popular if they are home to someone famous, but every cemetery is going to have its fair share of stories it’s just knowing how to find out about them.
The Bristol cemetery is beautiful. It has wonderful trees and greenery I visited on a summers evening and it was warm and a lovely place to walk around. The graves are beautiful some of these people had money as their not the run of the mill headstones.
However, the cemetery is a little difficult to walk around if you have mobility problems my mum came on the tour with me and she did struggle but she managed to get around. She found it so interesting and we did stop a number of times but at one point it is quite steep and because the ground is uneven, we were walking slowly so no one tripped.
I didn’t realise how big the cemetery was there were some little fairy houses along the way. Some of the tombstone’s are obviously in disrepair as they are so old and there are twigs and vines so extra care needs to be taken when walking around the cemetery, but it is so serene.
There are some signs around the cemetery explaining what the plants are. We went inside the crypt which had information boards and did feel a little spooky.
