The Horsingdon Transmissions No.111: Horsingdon Cemetary

Established in the 1830s, and inspired by early 19th Century French mortuary landscape architecture, the grounds of Horsingdon Cemetary is situated near the boundary of Horsingdon along the Harlowe Road. The classical archway pictured shove marks the entrance to the burying ground, through which one is then confronted by a considerable expanse of greenery - as well as mouldering, ivy-strewn funereal statuary.

Needless to say, Horsingdon Cemetary also contains its own unique cache of mysteries: the series of five consecutive tombstones carved from a greenish-black stone, and inscribed with the characters of a language which has thusfar resisted all attempts at translation, for example; and then there is the rumour that the sepulchre which houses the mortal remains of Charles Boreham - James Boreham's great-grandfather - also contains a cipher for unlocking the secrets of the fabulous Voynich manuscript; or the claim that a black-winged, faceless thing squats upon the unmarked grave of an unnamed witch at midnight every Walpurgis and All Hallow's Eve, and that, if one is willing to make a certain compact with the thing, one might be granted access to certain artefacts buried alongside their nameless mistress; there are of course reports of a vampire haunting the tombstones, and of even worse: a bloated, headless corpse with ravening mouths in place of hands, which wanders the cemetary at night in seek of prey.

It is true enough to say that, in recent decades, the cemetary has been allowed to fall into state of extreme disrepair; whilst this brings with it its own uniquely sombre and morbid aesthetic appeal, nonetheless the high redbrick Victorian walls which circumscribe the site are sagging and in danger of collapse. In the eyes of some locals, this is a cause for significant concern: not so much with regard to the harm it might visit upon passing pedestrians, but for what such a breach of boundaries might connote in terms of who - or what - might thus attain passage from the cemetary into the realm of the living.