Darjeeling Old Cemetery
Cemeteries often do not fall into the list of must see places when it comes to slicing out a piece of time during your vacation. But the Old Cemetery of Darjeeling which is also referred as the
Darjeeling Old Cemetery
Cemeteries often do not fall into the list of must see places when it comes to slicing out a piece of time during your vacation. But the Old Cemetery of Darjeeling which is also referred as the English Cemetery, has a definite reason to visit.
This is the resting place of those early British settlers who turned the densely forested mountains here into world's most renowned tea producing estates and created this beautiful gem of a hill town. So if you take interest in recalling the British Raj memories of Darjeeling, then this is the place to go.
The old cemetery is located about a mile from Darjeeling Town Center on Lebong Cart Road. There is an upper section which has a wonderful view of the tea gardens below and overlooks the Darjeeling town landscape. On a clear day, you can see the snow capped peaks of the Eastern Himalayan range including that of Kanchenjunga. In the upper section of the old cemetery, you will find graves dating back to early 1840s. So if you like to enjoy some peaceful and quiet time with great views around, this can be a great place. The lower section is close to the road.
Over the years, unfortunately the cemetery has not been maintained well enough since no organization took up that responsibility. In the earlier days many of the marbled graves had iron railings around them serving as a protective shield. No longer so. Most of them have been stolen or removed by the locals.
There are supposed to be well over 100 graves in the old cemetery. But now it's difficult to ascertain the exact number because some of the grave tombs have got destroyed over time. The inscriptions in many of the graves are now barely legible. This is probably because of the incessant pounding by the harsh monsoon weather over the centuries.
Old Cemetery, Darjeeling
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