Tag: books

A New Book

by Pete Lowdenin Books, General, History

There’s a new book. It’s called The Life of Hull General Cemetery Lodge and Other Stories.

The book covers the story of how the Cemetery Lodge, the jewel in the crown for the cemetery, was created but also the sad story of its loss to the forces of ‘progress’ in the 20th century. This building, the first commission of the noted Hull architect, Cuthbert Brodrick, was a creation in the Victorian Gothic mode. Its fairy tale castle effect was a highlight of the town. Yet within a a lifetime it was swept away.

Other stories in the book cover the struggle to create the Cemetery; the story of how the destruction of most of the headstones during the development of the cemetery in the 1970s took place and finally, a revisiting of a celebrated walk around the Cemetery by John Symons in the 1880s.

It’s available at Amazon and is priced at £10 post free.

The other books in this series are also still available from Amazon. These are a Short History of Hull General Cemetery, priced at £7. The War Dead of the Cemetery, priced at £10. Public Graves, Workhouse Graves, Catacombs and Crosses, priced at £7 and finally A Short History of Burial in Kingston Upon Hull from the Medieval Period to the Late Victorian Period. This is also priced at £7.

With the nights drawing in, what better way to spend them by reading  about cemeteries and death. Go on, treat yourself for Halloween. At the worst you can always burn them to keep warm.

The other books

 

Hull General Cemetery books

by Pete Lowdenin Books, General, News4 Comments on Hull General Cemetery books

The last of the few

This is a short news item about the availability of the Hull General Cemetery books. These were written by Bill Longbone and myself regarding certain aspects of Hull General Cemetery history.

There is a side bar on this site. If you click ‘More’ a drop down menu shows a number of items. One of those items is ‘books’. It advises you that you can buy the books from Amazon.co.uk or The Head Gardener on Spring Bank.

Unfortunately this information is no longer accurate. The books are now out of print and there are no plans to reprint them. The Head Gardener does not have any copies and Amazon doesn’t either. Hull Central Library may have some copies as they bought some from us at cost to sell on. I wouldn’t know how many copies they have left if any.

There are copies of the first two books in some Hull City Council libraries. The Hull History Centre has the full set, so if you’re a bit short of the ‘readies’, and you’re desperate to read our ‘deathless prose’, you could try that option.

The good news is that I do still have a few copies left. And when I say a few I mean just that. There are two of the War Dead of HGC, one of the Public Graves etc and one of the Short Introduction to Hull General Cemetery and that is it. If you want to buy a copy of the War Dead, they are £8 each and the Public Graves and the Short Introduction are £5 each. As you know all monies go to the FOHGC.

remaining books for sale

Not clever marketing

This is not a clever marketing ploy. No one can ever accuse us of being clever! If we were clever we would never have had anything to do with the cemetery in the first place.

These Hull General Cemetery books are rare and will not come back, and if they do (very unlikely!!), definitely not in their present format. Factors such as time, inclination and general weariness are against their resurrection.

Brexit is, not surprisingly, another factor which may make the printing / publishing of them (previously done in Poland) either uneconomic or inflate the price. And we always wanted the books to be ‘pocket money’ priced. So grab them while you can.

Here’s how. Send an email to the website and we’ll arrange something from there. First come, first served.

Who knows, in a few years one of these books could be your pension nest egg! Well, maybe not. But, on balance, probably safer than Bitcoin. At least we guarantee, that whatever happens in the future, you will still have a book to read.