Cemeteries are fascinating and often beautiful places, and by booking deals on cheap hotels in the major UK cities you can discover some of the most famous graves. Most London graveyards were started in Victorian times and as such, are full of Victorian treasures – grand monuments, statues, intricately carved headstones, and touching epitaphs. They can also be places for solitude and reflection – an oasis of calm from the bustling London streets and all are wildlife havens. No wonder more and more tourists are discovering their worth.

Hotels in London, and more specifically, Islington are a good base to visit the Bunhill Fields cemetery. This is quite an old cemetery and was opened at the end of the 17th century as London’s population was growing at such a rate, that the old church graveyards were filling up. Three notable literary giants are buried here also: Daniel Defoe, the author of ‘Robinson Crusoe’ William Blake and the author of ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’, John Bunyan.

Highgate Cemetery is one of London’s finest and most beloved graveyards. The headstones are more like works of art, as the deceased were laid to rest in the most artistic fashion. Step inside and you will be astounded at the sheer spectacle of it all; towering monuments, giant statues, great big mausoleums. It is a wondrous place. Karl Marx, the founder of modern communism is buried here as are novelists Beryl Bainbridge and George Eliot, and the great physicist, Michael Faraday was laid to rest here in 1867.

Scotland also has some amazing graveyards, and if you’re staying in hotels in Edinburgh be sure to visit the city’s great “kirkyards”. The most famous graveyard being Greyfriars kirkyard, immortalised in the book by Eleanor Atkinson. It’s the true story of a man and his dog bonded together so tightly that when the old man died, his dog Bobby used to go and lie on the grave for 13 years after Jock had died. It’s touching that Bobby or ‘Greyfriars Bobby’, as he became known, is also buried here and many still come to see his grave.

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