Nunhead Cemetery

One of the last of the seven great outer London necropolises to be opened by the London Cemetery Company between 1833 and 1841 (Nunhead was consecrated on 19th July 1840) in order to create more space for the proliferating dead of the city and relieve the overcrowding of its established burial grounds. Like Highgate, it was neglected in the post-war period and nature swiftly re-established its dominion. Unlike Highgate (and perhaps because of its location well south of the river) it was never reclaimed. The chapel was burned down in the seventies in an act of arson (seemingly testified by the wounded, fearful faces visible inside the ruins) and monuments and graves were cracked and toppled by roots, branches and drunken vandals. It has now been restored and the woodlands which grew up are maintained and managed as a wildlife reserve. Wild bluebells grow over the graves and the spirits of the dead are lifted by birdsong, their slumber disturbed by the incessant chatter of ring-necked parakeets, a now commonplace south London species which would have appeared exotic and worthy of remark in their day.

Brutalist Skies

Sir Denys Lasdun's National Theatre building, incorporating three separate theatres. Begun in 1969, with the first theatre opening in 1976. The Cottesloe, the last of the three spaces to be completed, opened in March 1977 with Ken Campbell's 8 hour cosmic conspiracy epic Illuminatus, an adaptation of Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea's mindblowing trilogy. Ideal fare for a new modernist building, the poured concrete barely dry, and a hard act to follow.