Place, Norwood Cemetery and Great Aunt Annie

How would you define Theology of Place?  Sacred places, sacred spaces? The place of community, cultural identity and location in influencing our spirituality ? Our search for meaning and identity? My attempts to ponder these questions  came to life recently  when Bishop Andrew Rumsey was invited to one of our churches to share his  music, poetry and reflection. So good, so atmospheric; St Michael’s is a beautiful country church and as the the evening drew in, we were drawn in turn into his  musings on time, place and identity (My  neighbour even spotted a bat flying high in the rafters, which certainly added an extra frisson).

My ‘high’ point, however (you must excuse me; I don’t get out much),  was Andrew’s mention of West Norwood Cemetery and the hidden rivers of London . I’d not heard of these before; those tributaries of the Thames which flow deep beneath the city, to rise in unexpected places.

Norwood Cemetery is one of the Magnificent  Seven London burial grounds and it holds a tiny fragment  of my family history. My namesake , Jane Ann, died just  aged two, likely from scarlet fever or one of the many other illnesses that carried off so many little ones back then. Had she lived, she would have been my Great-Aunt.

Jane Ann H Fuller

B1892 Lambeth 

D 1894

I  began to take an interest in finding   her grave after a lockdown search on Ancestry yielded the information  that she was buried in Norwood . But where? As I’d occasion to visit the Norwood/Streatham area on other business, I’ve spent much  time exploring the cemetery trying to find the elusive Open Ground 25668, common  grave  square 58, all  to no avail. Do you know it takes a good 40 minutes to walk from one end of the cemetery to the other?

Lambeth council reckoned the burial place might still be there, but to be honest, ‘Common Grave’ suggests that she was , as so many from impoverished families were, buried together  with other similar souls. Though at just two years old, I’d like to think that maybe she was tucked in besides a nice, motherly lady, (someone’s beloved granny for instance).

But of course that’s pure speculation; my over-fertile imagination trying to fill in the gaps in the narrative. 

So where do  Bishop Andrew’s reflections come in? Well, apart from the Norwood coincidence , it was his  story of two  coffins found floating in the Thames, one of which was traced back to West Norwood that spoke to me. However, to everyone’s astonishment , the actual grave itself was undisturbed, leading them to conclude that it had been dug  too close to the path of the  River Effra, causing the coffin to be sucked down  into the depths of the river, from thence  to set off on its last journey.

This (possibly mythical? )  event happened in the mid 19th century, so too early for little Annie, yet it caught my fancy. Who knows , if it happened once it could have happened again. The line between myth and truth blurs with the passing of time, I reckon and I’d like to think that Annie , together with other souls who were barely on this earth for long enough to make their mark,   might have had the chance to travel further in death than they ever did in life.