Old Burial Hill

On Halloween I posted about the proliferation of skull- (and crossbones) adorned stones at Old Burial Hill Cemetery in Marblehead, Massachusetts. Despite being small and having the largest concentration of skull imagery I've seen in any cemetery, Old Burial Hill was also full of a wide variety of wonderful non-bone-related tombstones.

The cemetery was established on the site of a meeting-house and is, very literally, on top of a hill. The views of the harbor are breathtaking and there is a gazebo on the top of a rock outcropping that I could just sit in for days. In fact, the entire town of Marblehead was painfully cute—we drove through it on our way in and out of the cemetery, but its winding streets definitely deserve a closer look.

Although, in my opinion, there is nothing better than a skull motif, Old Burial Hill contains some really lovely winged cherubs, suns, portraits and tombstone lettering. It's the first place that I can recall seeing the words "Memento Mori" on an actual headstone (several, actually) and the carvings are all so remarkably preserved despite being hundreds of years old.