Redcross way was quiet, empty, and suddenly a bit eerie. I felt quite alone in this still stretch of lane that runs between two busy roads just south of the Thames.
A plaque told me that this was the site of the Crossbones Graveyard, from late medieval times an unconsecrated burial site for prostitutes – and later, paupers – until its closure in the 19th century on public-health grounds. The “shrine” around it honoured up to 15,000 bodies buried on the site, and was, I read, a “place of healing where the Wild Feminine is honoured and celebrated for all that she is – whore and virgin, mother and lover, maiden and crone, creator and destroyer”. Whose voice was this? Who had threaded the ribbons into the wire, tied the doll to the fence, typed up the prayers, cut the lace? Who were the Londoners who felt compelled to mark a humdrum space with this iconography of femininity and death? The answer, I discovered later, was the Friends of the …
See the full article from “Independent”
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