Friday 13th May 2011

Guided Tour of Arnos Vale by Felicia Smith

As the sun set and dusk descended on Friday 13th May, a group of brave souls gathered for a night-time tour of Arnos Vale Cemetery.

Equipped with lanterns and encouraged by strength in numbers, three tour groups (79 visitors altogether) set off into the gloom and back through time.  Back to the grim conditions of the early 19th Century city, with its overcrowded churchyards, choleratic slums and shocking sanitation, conditions that led to the creation of Arnos Vale as a garden cemetery and haven for remembrance outside of the city of Bristol.

Up dark paths with eery silhouettes in the shadows and overhanging branches to tickle the hairs on your neck, they passed graves of some of the more "unusual" Arnos Vale's residents; strangers in shared graves, the Bedminster hermits, a lunatic earl and the first forensic scientist.  From folklore to funerals, secret tunnels to things that go bump in the night, those that braved the journey found Arnos Vale by night "unexpectedly fascinating" and emerged unscathed on this unluckiest of dates.