I know I haven’t been giving my beloved blog much attention lately but it’s only because my chronic fatigue has been working me over like a steam roller this summer so I haven’t been able to make it out of the house very often. So too has my usual travel companion who is currently being pushed to the brink by his capitalist overlords. As such we both desperately needed a more unusual outing, an extra little escape from the bleakness of reality. I pitched the Wydah Pirate Museum because you can’t beat pirates!
The Wydah Pirate Museum is an entire museum based on one very lucky discovery of a sunken pirate ship off the coast of Cape Cod. I’ve always wanted to see an old wooden shipwreck but am also phobic of the ocean so barring that this seemed a nice compromise.
We ended up during peak traffic hours on a gorgeous summer day so by the time we got there I was in no mood to be fighting with the GPS who didn’t feel it was nessassary to tell me which side of the road I was supposed to find this establishment. It is set back from the road with an underwhelming forefront so I drove right past it and ended up turning into a big seemingly abandoned parking lot which turned out to be almost directly across the road. And then I had to dodge two lanes of unrelenting traffic to get across said road which nearly ended in catastrophe when I saw a break in the traffic and slammed the gas to the floor only to have my wussy little Prius bottom out and only kick in a full second or two later. No one died, not even the Prius. Thank God.
As I drove in I was one of several cars there. Outside there was a big banner above the door to what looked like a big metal warehouse. This was almost as sketchy looking as all those salt water fish stores.
Fortunately the inside was completely different. Two teenagers joyfully tended the entrance desk and told us this was a no photo establishment and self guided tours started in an adjoining room where a short video played on a loop. Under the screen was a big gold bell in a tank which was apparently the first thing they found on this wreck.
Travellings into the museum itself we found LOTS of plaques and information, the usual scattering of creepy wax dummies, and a few cases of random things found. We learned this particular ship had a 40% black crew as well as numerous indigenous members and a random twelve year old runaway whose boot and shinbone were found and were currently on display. This was all news to me. I knew black pirates were a thing but I had no idea there were so many and why would an indigenous person want to be a pirate?? I had no answers on that one although the picture was much clearer for the black crew members who through escape and mutiny had chosen the pirate life over slavery. There was also a small display honoring the women pirates who dressed as men to take on this life which to me sounds like some transmen found belonging in a diverse democracy at sea. I’m telling you pirates sound better at governing than our own land based government.
I also got to see some twisted and broken pirate pistols and learned why pirate guns always seemed so cartoonishly large – its because they’re not hand guns, they’re literally sawed off shotguns. Remind me not to get on the bad side of a pirate.
There was even a little station where you could touch some of the coins dredged up during this escavation. They were well polished and worn by being pawed at by thousands of fingers and yet it was still pretty cool to touch someone’s spare change from hundreds of years ago. Also on display were real gold deblooms and pieces of six. They looked so much more primitive than I’d imagined.
But the most unique display was a whole room of various fish tanks filled with large chunks of the wreck that had been encased in mineral deposits and needed to be slowly melted away with the magic of water erosion. There were X-rays revealing what was in these strange rocks. I had always thought corals may take over these sunken vessels, it never occurred to me they’d be slowly enveloped by rock over time, like fossils! Of pirate guns.
Finally there was a slew of displays on what ultimately happened to the pirates who were caught. Spoliers: nothing good. Sort of brought my mood down a bit to be honest. I was rooting for these probably ADHD-addled sea rogues.
We took a moment to play at the knot tying station before scanning the gift shop for morbid loot. There were indeed books a plenty but I left them on this day feeling the $18 entrance fee was already quite enough to spend.
Off we went. I took a selfie outside with one of the wooden pirates so I’d have something to post here, having obeyed the rules of the inside museum.
After enjoying The Paper House and Cynthia Curtis Pottery we decided to head towards town and see if there were any walkable streets. We were not disappointed and there’s few things that make us happier than a surprise independent book store! You never know what you’re going to find in these places.
This one had a whole Beat section, some obscure local books, a number of weird antique books, a French copy of Babar, the usual LGBTQ+ section, and entertaining category signs and quotations. David Bowie was sprawled out on the Fashion categorey for example. So much character!
And the shopkeep? Adorable. I was eavesdropping and heard her exasperatedly claim, “I want to sell to queer people, not rob them!” In this capitalistic hellscape we live in such a statement is so refreshing! Not to mention allyship always warms the cockles of my heart.
So yeah, looking for something obscure, old, or weird, this is you place!
This one had been on my list for a long time because it was so odd. And the entrance fee was only $3 a head. Win.
I didn’t actually know where Rockport was. On the other side of Boston of course… so we did that whole fun trip right through the city and all the traffic but luckily it wasn’t that bad on this spring day. When we got to the Paper House it was in a residential neighborhood that was littered with signs reading no parking on this side of the street.
The sign was outside a regular house and up a small city driveway. Was I supposed to go in the driveway??? Could I park on the street?? The driveway had two parking spots, one had what I asumed was the home owner’s car in it. I parked in the other one and we walked awkwardly up the driveway wondering what was going to happen from here. Would we have to ring someone’s doorbell or ring a number? We walked up to the building on the property that read Paper House and looked in the windows. Yep, it was the paper house. It took us a minute to find a sign stating the door was unlocked and we could go in. There was an honor box outside to leave our entry fees.
This place was really small but fun. We were clearly the only ones there. In the structure the walls were decorated with folded paper in the style of “tramp art,” which was common in the 1920’s when these pieces were made. There were chairs, a table, a piano, and a grandfather clock, all decorated with rolls of paper. The information given was that these were made as an experiment to see how long print paper (in this case newspapers) could hold up if varnished and used to make things. There was no explanation as to WHY this experiment was going on, only that it was the homeowner’s grandfather who started in with this quirky hobby in the 1920’s. Some postcards sat out for souvenirs if you wanted to pay an extra 35 cents.
There was also a few pamphlets on other cool places to go in the area including a pottery shed just a few houses down. We’d continue our explorations there. This was a quirky little side quest and if you’re int he area I deffinately think you should give it a little lookey-loo. Otherwise, on it’s own, this probably wasn’t enough for me to say it’s worth any sort of drive, especially through Boston traffic! However, there’s lots of other stuff to do in the area that may make it worth it.
And I’m back with another great CHEAP museum! Only $2 for admission! Unless you wanted to splurge and buy a planetarium ticket of course. We would have but it’s only open certain days and times which didn’t happen to be when we showed up.
Today’s destination had been chosen not just because it was free but because it was the home of a very unfortunate lioness and her cubs which… I’m honestly not certain they weren’t horrifically deformed prairie dogs. Such is the guesswork that goes into bad taxidermy.
But before we even got to the museum we first had to find it near the Roger William’s Zoo which… consider this the afterlife for random zoo animals and wildlife. The parking lot wasn’t very big and only had one tiny entrance that if you missed it you’d literally have to loop around the entire goddamn block to get back to it. Ask me how I figured that out!
It was surprisingly bustling. We were met by a clerk who told us if we wanted there were several treasure hunts we could enjoy, which were usually for kids but came in three levels of challenge. We’re big kids at heart so we each took one sheet with our questions, a clip board, and a tiny pencil. I haven’t written in pencil in decades. And between the fact it was a pencil and barely big enough to hold my hand writing came off as quite serial killer-esque. No matter I had the hardest treasure hunt and I was going to complete it!
The treasure hunt paper told us which room worth of displays each question’s answer could be found it so it was mostly easy peasy pudding and pie.
First off we had the dinosaurs because… well they deserve to always be the first thing you see as they’re awesome. There was the obligatory T-rex skull (complete with janky teeth!) Some dinosaur egg shells and for reasons I’ll never understand a marble statue of a beautiful woman and her baby.
The wildlife room was next and filled to the brim with taxidermy coming from all skill levels! The perfect ones were lovely but I was most endeared to the ones who looked like they were melting and malformed including one morbidly obese squirrel I’m positive got that way eating cosmic brownies. He just had that look. This room was just local wildlife but other parts of the museum had everything from a polar bear, to a koala that looked like a crumpled bit of fuzzy newspaper, to the aforementioned lioness who was the coup d’etat of bad taxidermy, Jesus Christ was that something.
But my favorite bit of taxidermy was the kakapo, otherwise known as the world’s chonkiest parrot. So fat it can’t even fly. I laughed and then sadly sighed because this parrot was the same kind that was featured on that Stephan Fry nature documentary that went from a sweet segment about a nearly extinct parrot to some poor bastard getting savagely humped for 15 minutes while Fry and crew just laughed. It’s here if you need a chuckle today. My sigh was because I’d recently had an out with the friend who would have known why this particular specimen was so funny.
But anyway, parrots with no grasp of consent aside, this museum also had a section for all things outer space, a room of curious bark textiles, more taxidermy, and a geology room with a map of Rhode Island and what it’d look like if all the ice caps melted. RIP Providence, Newport, and most of the rest of the state. May you sleep sound with the fishies. Amen.
This was a happy fun little museum if you happen to be in the area or are coming back from the zoo and are wondering what those animals look like stuffed.
After enjoying the Beneski’s Natural History Museum it was only a short walk across campus to the Mead Art Museum which was also free.
I noticed the tower out front before we got there and realized it was part of the art museum and I enjoyed taking photos of different angles.
Inside the art museum there was one woman at the check-in and a few other visitors wandering around. The art museum was pretty small and had a very disjointed collection that seemed to be a completely random sampling of different unrelated topics from ancient Etruscan engravings, to recreations of destroyed funeral art, to a room decorated more like a medieval castle than a college, to a visiting black art exhibit, to a painting of a woman being harassed by a cherub weilding a knitting needle. The latter was my favorite because of the expression on the woman’s face that seemed to say, “It’s back again isn’t it?! I can feel it’s sticky hands over my shoulder!”
My other favorite part was the visiting black art exhibit which unlike the rest had a unifying theme making it seem more approachable and less neurotic and all over the place. We had seen everything in maybe 20 minutes. And that included a lot of dawdling.
I’ve certainly been to more impressive art museums but it was free and near the Natural History Museum so why not visit anyway?
From here we attempted to go to the Emily Dickinson Museum also on campus but that museum charges entry and apparently has the sketchy hours of a salt water fish store. As such we found out it was closed when we drove up.
Why not follow up a ghost hunt at the Lizzie Broden Inn with a stroll through the cemetery she was buried in a few days later? That’s absolutely what we, two lovably morbid history buffs, did today.
I had Oak Grove Cemetery on my big list of cemeteries to check out but I had long forgotten why until I was reminded this morning. Ooooh yeeeah, it’s where the Bordens are buried!
I was expecting another sprawling garden cemetery oozing personality in the form of varied monuments and when I drove up to the gate of this place I really felt this what it must be. Big iron castle-looking gates, an actual parking lot beyond with several cars, and an information center inviting you to check out their cemetery tour QR code. But that wasn’t necessary because there were giant white arrows on the pavement leading to Lizzie’s grave. This place certainly knew who to cater to! This is the first time in all my cemetery jaunts that I have seen a grave so well marked for tourists. And it was only a very short walk which was great because it was cold as a witch’s tit today.
Curiously Lizzie is buried in the same plot as the father and step mother she likely ax murdered. She was found innocent at the time and lived a long life afterwards but there’s proof here she never quite got away from the stigma of the crime in the form of her name – changed from Elizabeth to Lizbeth. I don’t think dropping the E helped much to be honest. She’d eventually move from the family home to her own mansion across town where instead of socializing with an entire town that was giving her the cold shoulder she prefered instead to host theater actrices from afar, more than a few of which she likely courted. In those days she would have been known as a spinster, today we probably would say something more along the lines of lesbian.
Lizzie Borden to me stands as a bit of a tragic figure. Forever memorialized by a children’s jump roping rhyme forever naming her as a killer and she probably was but I think if she were tried today she’d be seen in a little more sympathetic light. There’s quite a few historians who give her father more than a little side eye for potentially being not just a miser and all around horrible person but also one who may have been grooming his own daughters. I saw the crime scene photos – there is nothing left of the Borden’s faces, to me that suggest some serious pent up rage, built up from decades of abuse and held back only by the strings of a corset. Lizzie may still see her time as we grow as a society to have a better understanding of criminal psychology. We could recast her as a folk hero of the Me Too Movement for taking charge of her own destiny in a time when that was near impossible for a woman.
But back to the cemetery, would I suggest it to my readers here? Maybe, if you are into the Lizzie Borden story. Otherwise probably not. Although the cemetery was sprawling there were remarkably few monuments that looked unique enough to get my attention – less than a handful of statues, a couple masoliums, a single Celtic cross. I will note however there was a rather large murder of crows watching us from creepy bare trees the whole time which seemed fitting.
If you grew up in New England you deffinately skipped rope to the sound of gleefully morbid children singing, “Lizzie Borden had an ax, gave her mother 40 whacks, when she saw what she had done she gave her father 41.” Before counting to the sound of the rope slapping the ground. The Lizzie Borden story is forever written in infamy – a grusome crime that was never officially solved. Was Lizzie, who was found by a neighbor burning a bloody dress guilty of such of crime? Or was the maid who claimed to be asleep in the house, or Lizzie’s sister Emma, or the mystery guest or uncle who showed up to town just two days before? Character reports of the murder victims painted them increasingly cruel over the years so whose to say who had an ax to grind with them? The people at the time did put Lizzie on trial (while heavily sedated by doctors to calm her nerves) and they found her innocent because ax murdering is just not something a proper lady of the time was capable of! Lizzie moved on, bought a different house across town, became a patron of the arts, took on the occasional mistress, and died a spinster, forever shunned by the people about town. And the house.. it remained more or less the same until someone decided to make it into an inn. Of course times are tough so it’s had to get creative to pay the bills. In addition to being an inn it also converted the barn to a gift shop and now hosts regular ghost tours and hunts. It sounded like a fun place to poke around.
We arrived early in hopes of finding parking and lucked out. There is a very small and hard to find parking lot but it only is comfortably big enough for four cars or so.
The tour started at registration in the little gift shop which was filled with all sorts of brutal memorabilia, the usual magnets and postcards scattered among black cat plushies and bloody ax pillows, and a whole corner devoted to ghost hunting devices – everything you could ever want in that department from simple EMF meters, to REM pods, to spirit boxes and more. Under glass at the counter there was a fun display of pottery fragments and metal things from the era that had been dug up on the property. Tonight the group was large consisting of I believe 19 people and the tour guide of course. Most of these people seemed to be young goths and couples looking for an interesting date night. I would expect no less. There was also one other family there with a small child who seemed quiet and content. We had come ourselves at the request of a very excited teenager and here we were!
After checking in we were led to a small kitchen and we all gathered around to be told the cliff notes version of the tale but this time it included the neighbors, relatives of the Bordens, who also witnessed murder in their household when the mother dropped her three babes in the well before slitting her own throat with a razorblade. Two of the children drown in the well while a third scrabbled her way out and survived the ordeal. Was it another attempt at a whole family murder at the hands of the husband or was this really the murder/suicide of a woman stricken with post partum psychosis in the days before medical science even had an inkling of such a thing? I guess no living person will know but we were told the children often skip on over here to talk with guests. And finally we were told of Max the cat who died at 21 just a week after his owners sold this house and moved. His paw prints and ghostly visage still showing up from time to time.
From here we were all given EMF meters to use and allowed to choose from a whole host of other ghost hunting goodies – spirit boxes, yes or no lights, dowsing rods, a thermal scanner, REM pods galore, one of those devices that puts green dots all over the place, headphones, cat toys that lit up when touched. We were given a brief instruction on all of them before being split up into two groups, one which got to go into the creepy basement first and one which got to play around the first floor where Andrew Borden met his fate. The top two floors were of course reserved for inn guests . And then we were basically off to free range and do as we pleased, as long as that wasn’t playing with a ouijia board!
Of course by now we had one super excited teenager and one who found the experience a little too scary at first – not appreciating the ghosts answering during device demonstrations nor the bloody manniken corpse on the couch at the site of the murder. But we encouraged her to get involved and ask questions of the yes/no light which would light up green for yes, red for no, and with quite a bit of coaxing she really warmed up to the yes/no box, so much so that in a few minutes it was just herself and I asking it questions and it was going off steadily, although at times it’d light up both red and green which was a bit confusing. That being said the lights were oddly comforting in their responses and she was able to see the ghosts here appeared to be of the friendly variety. Meanwhile my companion and the other teenager were in the dining room playing with dowsing rods and having just as much success. Hilariously both the dowsing rods and yes/no box appeared to prefer just the two people they were talking to keeping us separated into pairs for the time being though I did pop my head for a moment to see the dining room whose table had actual crime scene photos that despite being in black and white were no less horrific. There was just no recognizable face left on either corpse. That… that’s some potent familial rage there.
Other guests were in the other rooms playing joyfully with their chosen devices and apparently doing as well with them as us. I was pleasantly surprised. I sort of expected this to be a pretty boring tour-kind of exercise where we might hear one or two words on the spirit box so we could all oo and awe and come home but the amount of activity going on here was wild. I would have been happy with just that but on hour two we were instructed to switch with the other team and so we entered the creepy basement where we were shown a face in the bricks above a wash basin, a thermal photo of Max the cat’s ghost, pawprints in the paint also ascribed to Max, the luminol-sprayed and glowing blood stains that dripped from the floor above, and a room that was once used for seances and ouijia board readings.
At this point our whole group started in the room with the wash basin but it’d only be a moment or two before all three of them left me behind to poke at something else. So I found myself in a room with the yes/no box, a REM pod, a cat ball, an EMF Guage, and a set of dowsing rods at which point the yes/no box started going mental and blinking both lights without request, the REM pod started its high pitch squealing, the cat ball lit up, my EMF reader spiked all the way up, and just for shits and giggles I took out the dowsing rods which no matter where I stood just continued to point at the REM pod. What am I supposed to do with that? With everything going off and nothing stopping I resigned myself to find something else to do (mostly because the screaming from the REM pod was burrowing into my autistic brain and was irritating me more than I can express.) I left to find the teens both alone playing with the headphones and radio in the seance room. I made my way in and sat down. One held the earphones close to her head and stated words that she could hear as the radio flipped between stations. The other asked questions for a time but it got a bit mean-spirited and I wasn’t sure what to make of it. I thought at first one may just be trying to scare the other with repeated words like, “death,” “die,” and “cemetery” but by the time it said, “go into the street” the mood didn’t seem jokey. Nonetheless teen two got up and demanded they get a turn with the headphones while teen one spooked out of a seeming trance and claimed to remember nothing of what they’d said. I shifted but continued to observe to make sure nothing got too out of hand. Teen two put the headphones on and started in on the same spooky malarkey. Teen one did not appreciate this and I think may have been a little spooked as well when they got up and put a stop to the whole experiment. Teen two left to see what everyone else was up to as teen one picked up the flashlight which had two settings – UV and normal light. They wanted to see the bloodstains so they put on the UV and directed it at the ceiling at which point it switched on its own to regular light. Annoyed they asked if we could turn out the light so we asked the guide coming around if that’d be alright. He agreed but the flashlight continued to switch. At this point the guide was curious and confused as we were. He took the flashlight and tried himself and it didn’t respond but upon handing it back to teen it switched three more times. He said it’d never done that before. None of us really knew what to make of it so we wandered off to see what my companion was up to. He was in a third room in the basement, in the dark, smiling the biggest grin I’ve ever seen him wear. His EMF meter was lit all the way and a group had formed here and was asking questions which were apparently being enthusiastically answered by the ringing of a little service bell. They believed they were talking to the drown children and were playing games with them. So at this point there’s three rooms in the basement and basically all of them were seeing an insane flurry of activity all at once. That is not what I expected! But the crowd was jubilant and we were all having a good time – until one young man sat in the seance room and put on the headphones. He immediately heard, “I hate you” and ripped them right off. So clearly whatever lives in that room is a turd to everyone. I felt a bit better for not yelling at the girls for being mean to each other as it really seemed to be just an angry ghost. I didn’t think I’d ever be saying that!
By now the night was winding to a close and our spooked teen was thoroughly involved and had a lot of fun but was still concerned about bringing something unwanted home. To appease the household spirits they gave a toy frog they had in their pocket to the tour guide to place in the room upstairs where guests had left all sorts of toys for the ghost children. I left my own tidings in the form if a tip to our gracious host for the evening who I must say wore a period top hat very well!
All and all it was a very exciting night and we were all absolutely tuckered out from all the activity. We did not get to go back to the gift shop which is a shame as we would have bought souvenirs but I did get a special memento in the form of a weird light/mist in one of my few photos which was coincidentally was in the same room as all the devices going on when I was in there alone.
Soooo, would I suggest a ghost hunt at the Lizzie Borden Inn? Absolutely! And having gone on one perhaps we shall join a ghost tour someday to learn more of the history. This place was a wild ride for sure!
I’m not going to lie – life circumstances right now have sapped me of any mental energies I may be taking to pick locations as of late, so this duty has been left to my usual travel companion and this location turned out to be a real gem!
Right in the gate there was this super sad statue in front of a geese filled duck pond, er geese pond? A fountain and fall foliage brought the whole scene together like some sort of morbid post card from beyond. And this place was huge! We hadn’t gone to find anyone in specific but we did hear this was a garden cemetery with a lot of gorgeous monuments and it did not disappoint!
Near the beginning we immediately came across a bizarre stone reading, “The Man Fortune, died 1798, buried September 13, 2013. Child of God, free at last.” The grammar was particularly confusing. Was this the Man Fortune as in a fortune of the Man family or a man named Fortune?? And what was up with the dates?! It was clearly a new stone.
As it turns out Fortune was this man’s name. He was a slave, born in Africa, who served under a local doctor who decided to take advantage of his death by using his corpse as a cadaver to dissect and teach other medical students since cadavers at the time were very hard to come by, there’s only so many criminals one can hang on a given year. We can be assured this was not agreed upon by Fortune himself prior to his death and insult was added to injury as his cadaver was rendered into a skeleton that then taught anatomy students and then took up residence in a local museum until the 1940’s under the name Larry. Eventually the origins of “Larry” was discovered almost 200 years later and he was taken down from display. It wasn’t until 2013 however that someone decided to give him a proper burial in the churchyard he was baptized in a year before his death. It was apparently a big news story that got national attention although now I didn’t see a single penny on his grave.
Beyond this there were a bunch of statues of mourning women scattered throughout the cemetery, an elk on a hill overlooking everything, and a few unique monuments as well. As expected in a cemetery of this sort of wealth we also came across a number of stone masons. Everything was just electrified by the blushing trees in the background, one was so golden we took a ton of shots of it, none of which showed just how vibrant yellow it really was. We spent a few hours wandering this place. It’s hilly and with every hill there’s a new view, none of them disappointing! This place was perfect for the would-be photographer looking for an afternoon out.
Although it does not have terribly many famous names here it was still worth a good walk through and the two hours it took to get there. We had an awesome time and I would highly recommend this place!
*Credit given to my BFF for taking the cover photo. His photographic skills often surpass my own and DAMN was that a brilliant photo!
You’d think after a hike and a cemetery jaunt we’d be too pooped to go on but no, there was the promise of antiquing nearby and how happy I am to have found this place! It was a GEM.
Upon entering we were greeted and told there were 200 plus cases of antiques here and I was welcome to take as many photos as I pleased. I was a bit speechless because usually I am regarded with deep suspicion for taking photos and then I have to make the whole spiel about no, I am not a robber, just someone with a travel blog, and so on and so forth. I probably should have at least said as much but I was so taken aback by the moment I didn’t get a chance to.
Most antique stores are pretty similiar but every once in a while you find one that is just oozing personality. This was one of those place and myself and my travel companions had great fun peering into each case and finding the most disturbing or odd objects we could find. There was just SO MUCH of these things – from the usual probably haunted dolls to a vase swarming with infants clinging to every side. You know, something for everyone. There was an abundance of creepy old horses that only vaguelly looked said creatures and my personal favorite was a faded old cannister which depicted a giggling baby clutching a razor blade. Things were different back in the day. And if creepy wasn’t your thing there was also cute in the form of a really neat nursery tale book written in some sort of thick dialect – maybe Scottish or Irish? And there was also beautiful in the form of a really neat chandelier made of slices of agate and some exquisitely carved furniture as well which I had to joke wouldn’t fit into the Prius. Shame I lost my ability to speak properally in that moment. This happens fairly frequently to me but it’s still annoying.
This was also a lovely place for weird art. It adorned the walls and showed up in 3D as odd folk-art of animals and homemade Gothic dollhouses. There was just one delight after another. And we apparently enjoyed ourselves so much the owners couldn’t help but comment on all the giggling. But no buys? Not this time ma’am, but I am sure we will be back on some day at least one of us has money (yay, poor planning!) This place was an absolute joy. I’d suggest it to anyone who loves the old and the odd.
After taking a walk down the old Jailhouse Trail we came back out to the parking lot and noticed there was a little cemetery just across the way. It looked very small but hey, we’re here, why not?
The cemetery was attached to a lovely unitarian church and at first we thought it was only a few stones however we soon realized that it wound around the church and very quickly became the TARDIS of cemeteries going very far back and even across the road! I guess Barnstable must have had quite a booming population at one point! Having done no research at all I do not know if there is anyone noteworthy buried here, though I would kind of doubt it. It did however have stones going all the way back to old slate and sandstone with the usual weird carvings I adore so much. We got quite a hike out of it! And a spooky photo of myself and one of my companions silhouetted in a way that make us look like ghosts! How cool is that? Definitely a fin little detour.
