Arcadia Discussion Zone

One of the 'Magnificent Seven' parkland cemeteries created in the early Victorian period, albeit set out in an entirely different way to the others and with somewhat wider purposes, Abney Park features an entrance designed by William Hosking FSA in collaboration with Joseph Bonomi the Younger and the cemetery's founder George Collison II. This frontage was built by John Jay in the then increasingly popular 'Egyptian Revival' style, with hieroglyphics signifying the 'Abode of the Mortal Part of Man': a venture too far into the architecture of the African continent for Augustus Pugin who pilloried the idea, hoping no-one would repeat such a radical departure from 'good' Christian gothic design (see illustration for Grounds of a Quaker School). A similar criticism had previously been made when the first Egyptian-style entrance to a western cemetery had been constructed at Mount Auburn Cemetery in the 1830s, on which Abney Park Cemetery was partially modelled. By contrast, figures who appreciated the composition, complimented William Hosking and Joseph Bonomi on their scholarly frontage design; including an arbiter of design taste, John Loudon, who described it as a 'judicious combination of two lodges with gates between'.
Bracing the controversy, Abney Park could claim to be the earliest complete design for a permanent 'Egyptian Revival' entranceway at a cemetery anywhere in the world. The gateway at Mount Auburn Cemetery from which it took its inspiration, was at that time still a temporary structure, being made of dusted wood and sand; its permanent 'Egyptian Revival' design was not built until two years after Abney Park's design opened. In England there were already some examples of the use of 'Egyptian Revival' architecture on a small-scale, including one example of a small 'Egyptian Revival' gate installed at a cemetery for Nonconformists near Sheffield in 1836. However, Abney Park Cemetery became the first to employ the style for cemetery buildings, and also the first to introduce it for a complete entrance design.

A heartbroken family fear their parents' grave has been used by devil worshippers in a bizarre night-time ritual.
Pensioner Doris Turner and her sister, Jessie Johnson, say they were shocked to find candles in tin holders left on the plot shared by their mother and father at Abney Park cemetery in Stoke Newington.
The candle holders had symbols on them which they mistakenly believed were the Jewish Star of David, but later discovered was a pentagram associated with Satanists and their witchcraft rites.

Thirteen years ago sick ghouls opened a family vault and stole human remains - and in 1986 a sex-change woman was charged with robbing graves and stealing the skull of a woman aged about 30 who was buried there.

Mature trees and woodland now adorn Abney Park, completing its transformation into a woodland cemetery. This has been so profound a change that by the early 1990s the cemetery was acknowledged to be the largest woodland ecosystem in North London so close to the centre of the City of London, and became designated as the first statutory Local Nature Reserve in the London Borough of Hackney.
Under careful management the woodland is slowly becoming enriched through natural regeneration. The northern areas are slowly returning to native oaks with a hornbeam and hawthorn understory, and a woodland ground flora that includes Wood False Brome grass and Wood Spurge; the whole being interspersed with naturalising exotic thorns and service trees to add a cross-cultural dimension. Meanwhile, the sandy brickearth soils that extend from Church Street along Dr Watts' Walk to the chapel lawns, the sole surviving heathland in Hackney, are returning to a lighter structure based on Silver Birch woodland and healthy species such as bracken fern. Today, a range of woodland birds, mammals and butterflies are supported; the grounds forming one of north London's largest breeding sites so close to the City for some very attractive species such as the Speckled Wood butterfly.

the image with the red eyes...looks like that of a person, not a demon. a young man.
emphasising the eyes indicates to me, the possession of one.
the writing on the wall...notice how the "f"s are shaped the same way as the weird cross.
also, the inverted pentegram...is not quite perfect...indicating that the eyes and the red writing may have been added later, in a hurry.

Very unedifying. The presence of the pig's head almost certainly implies a satanic ritual. Apart from animal mutilation being the stock-in-trade of devil worshippers, putting a pig's head onto someone's grave is seen as a way of allowing Satan to enter the world via the snout, as discussed in the unpleasant story in the article below, from the St. Petersburg (Florida) Times from 1995.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=8 ... 52,2644788

The head you found, together with the graffiti, strongly suggest, therefore, that there have been satanic activities at this site, and being consecrated ground, this would appeal strongly to the practicioners of such rituals, who seek to subvert the Christian message through inversion - the upside-down cross, for example. Whether this was just distasteful foolishness, or something more sinister, is anyone's guess, although I would be interested to learn from some of the occult experts now on these boards, the extent to which they believe satanism of this type (as in, worship of the devil, as opposed to other forms of paganism) is practiced these days.

One can only hope that the people who did this foul deed obtained their pig's head from a butchers shop, and didn't ritually slaughter the poor creature in the place where you found its head. Given that this is a public place, one would hope the former. Either way, it's very sick behaviour. The killing of a black cock and a white hen in satanic rituals is also quite common.

I'd be interested to know if the face painted onto the wall might be a representation of a specific demon, or is merely generic.

Interesting story, Andrew, but an indication of gross human unpleasantness, at the very least. One hopes that anyone investigating this on the ground exercises extreme caution.

yes...
nasty!
so it seems that there are 'organised satanic cults' and perhaps what many refer to as 'dabblers'.