‘So how would you use your local knowledge to help tourists make the most of their time in Tower Hamlets during the Games?’ asked my interviewer a couple of months ago, as he sized me up for a potential voluntary role working for the council during the Olympics.
‘I’d direct them to all of this area’s hidden natural treasures,’ I gushed, ‘like Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park up in Mile End…have you been there?’
‘Um…no…I mean I’ve never heard of it…’
‘Oh it’s stunning, the old tombstones are beautiful and you’d never expect to find natural woodland round that area…’ The gushing continued.
He peered at me over his specs. ‘So you’re saying that when Olympic visitors looking for entertainment in an area they don’t know ask your advice, you’re going to send them to a graveyard?’
‘No, well I mean yes, but…shit.’
I actually got the job in the end – and we had a good old laugh about it – but I stand firm in my premise, that Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park is a hidden, leafy paradise. Just a stones throw away from one of the most polluted roads in London, it’s now a nature reserve which houses all kinds of plant, bird and insect species’. With natural woodland stretching on for what seems like miles, at the risk of sounding like a cliche-belching Estate Agent, you wouldn’t know you’re in London.
Here are some photos if you don’t believe me…
All images copyright Claire Shropshall
All images copyright Claire Shropshall
Posted on August 21, 2012
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