St James Cemetery is a popular tourist destination of Liverpool. It is home to the Anglican Cathedral. It houses the graves of a number of famous personalities such as Captain Elisha Lindsay Halsey, David James, Thomas Keay, Catherine "Kitty" Wilkinson and so on.
St James Cemetery is one of the major attractions of Liverpool. The cemetery dates back to the 19th century. It is home to the wonderful Anglican Cathedral. The spring in the East Wall is another distinctive feature of this cemetery. Known for its healing properties, the natural spring water is collected in 'The Pool of Siloam'. Numerous graves are housed within the boundary of this cemetery.
History of the St James Cemetery
The history of the St James Cemetery is extremely interesting and date back to the 1800's when this place was essentially a sandstone quarry. In 1775, the church of St. James was built and the adjoining quarry was named as St. James Mount. Thereafter, John Foster was given the responsibility of designing a new cemetery after the entire quarry became barren and was left at the disposal of the city council. He designed a huge cemetery with walkways, streets lined with trees and a porters lodge. In 1894, a suggestion was made that
the land adjoining the cemetery could be used for useful purposes but the plan never got
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formulated. Gradually the cemetery got over-populated and was closed in the year 1936. During the late 1960's another plan was made to transform this cemetery into a public garden and as a result, most of the land was cleared. The public garden was completed in the year 1972.
Features of St James Cemetery
There are three tunnels which lead to the St. James Cemetery and currently the tunnel walls are decorated with gravestones. The path of the first tunnel is rather of a winding nature and is used mainly for pedestrian traffic purposes. The other two tunnels were mainly used earlier for the purpose of carrying hearse but now lie abandoned.
Friends of St. James
The Friends of St. James is a non-governmental organization which was formed in the year 2001 by local organizations and the Conservation Foundation. The main objective of this organization is to involve people in several fund-raising campaigns which would help in improving the natural park of St. James Cemetery.
St. James Cemetery has become a popular tourist attraction after being transformed into a nature conservation park.
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