A.J. Walker

writerer

Walking: Keeping It Up

Walking: Keeping It Up and 80,000 Bodies

Did alright with my steps last week after a very short Monday. My quest for an average of 8k steps per day (56k a week) was hit with four days above 8 and 3 below. The week hit a little over 60k despite a few off-puttingly wet days at the back end of the week.

The luckiest days was Saturday when the deluge seemed to be constant for hours and set in. Suddenly stopped and I got a 3.5 mile walk in: to a brewery. Win-win. Second only to the ale was staying dry for the entire walk. Oh and bumping into some friends. Win-win-win.

WildFlowers
Wild Flowers at Walton Hall Park

CootAndAlgae
Green Algae and a Coot

BankHall1
Bank Hall Station

One of the things about making sure I get the distance in is that I am walking down roads or in areas I wouldn’t normally go. Once this week I got off the bus five stops early as I could see the rain and stopped and it looked like it would stay dry for a bit. I took the opportunity to walk onto Grant Gardens for the first time. I only discovered relatively recently that the small grassed park was actually formerly a massive cemetery called Liverpool Necropolis and that within it’s relatively small confines 80,000 people are thought to have been buried. There is little evidence of its history there now. There is one small monument which states “In Memory of James and Mary Johnson’ but doesn’t have dates on it or any information in relation to the ‘Gardens’. As a flat grassed area with a road through the middle of it ‘Gardens’ harks back to a past when it really was. If I wasn’t trying to walk more then I wouldn’t have got off the bus at the point and wouldn’t have walked onto the park. Does make you think about what we don’t know about the areas we drive or walk past every day.

From what I’ve seen on Wikipedia and a couple of other sites Liverpool Necropolis occupied about 5 acres and operated between 1825 and 1898. It was reopened 16 years later (1914) as a park: ‘Grant Gardens.’ It was closed in 1898 as it had reached capacity (80,000 bodies) and was creating ‘unsanitary conditions’ to the surrounding area: Victorian terraces backed straight up against it. It was named Grant Gardens after the Alderman for Parks and Gardens Committee at the time of its creation. A bit egotistical if you ask me.

GrantMemorial
Memorial at Grant Gardens

GrantGardens2
Grant Gardens

Anyway, where ever I am walking it does give me the opportunity to take some photos - always a bonus. And maybe learn more about the places I walk through.


Week’s details:
Distance:
28 miles
Steps
60.3k
Average Distance:
4 miles
Average Steps:
8,600

Onwards and Alongwards.
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