Churchyards - living with death

London churchyards are ancient, beautiful...and mostly empty. The bones are laid to rest in the crypts of the parish church, and the headstones are taken away or moved to the walls and borders if, as in many cases, the churchyard becomes a public park.

Many small parks and green squares in London are old churchyards reclaimed for the public.

The memorials, many weather-worn or covered with moss, remain in full view even though the occupants are gone, creating a somber, meditative atmosphere.

Some of the stones even have a new function as path markers - they're so old you could almost mistake them for the metal utility covers between them.

Old tombs still stand, some solid and level, others tipping sideways with the subsidence of hundreds of years.

Some of the better-sheltered stones seem fresh-cut, showing hardly any effects of the weather.

Others are so worn it's hard to see what was originally carved on them.

Some churchyards, like St Andrew's Gardens in Camden, are even laid some distance away from the parish church that owned them and have become visitor spaces in their own right, decorated with flower beds, new plantings and even drinking fountains donated by patrons.

Spending quiet time with memorials to bodies that aren't there any more might seem like a strange practice, but it's as valid as visiting a museum to see memento mori paintings. We savour the life we have while we still have it, and spare a kind thought for those who have gone.