The REAL Great Corridor Of The Catacomb!!!
Posted: 03 Apr 2023, 19:14
Did you know that, in a manner of speaking, you can visit the Great Corridor Of The Catacomb? Not the one in Knightmare Castle of course, but there is one of a sort, down in Devon.
Sorry these pics are so dark, but here is a glimpse inside from one of my last visits home in 2015; -
The Catacombs in question are built into the north-west of the Roman City walls of Exeter, at the top of a cemetery in Exe Street that had been established in response to the 1832 Cholera Epidemic. You can find the cemetery a few-dozen metres west of the old 'north gate' crossroads, off Bartholomew Street. (You can even go inside the Catacombs, but only as part of Red Coat guided tour. The tours are free, and you can get information about them at the Cathedral.)
To explain the background; towards the end of the 19th Century, many of the richer people in Exeter developed a rather weird, I daresay slightly morbid, fascination with Ancient Egyptian forms of burial. Some of the more eccentric among them began to see an appeal in having a really grand, Pharoah-like tomb as their final resting place. (I'd have thought by the time they'd snuffed it, they'd be past caring, but clearly they thought otherwise.) So at considerable expense, they had built a series of mock-Egyptian Catacombs, all connected by this lengthy 'corridor.' The tombs themselves are simply called 'The Catacombs,' and somewhat perversely have turned this cemetery into a slightly bizarre tourist attraction.
So, while it doesn't much resemble the moving wall or the toaderdile's lurking place, there is technically a real Great Corridor of the Catacombs in Britain.
Sorry these pics are so dark, but here is a glimpse inside from one of my last visits home in 2015; -
To explain the background; towards the end of the 19th Century, many of the richer people in Exeter developed a rather weird, I daresay slightly morbid, fascination with Ancient Egyptian forms of burial. Some of the more eccentric among them began to see an appeal in having a really grand, Pharoah-like tomb as their final resting place. (I'd have thought by the time they'd snuffed it, they'd be past caring, but clearly they thought otherwise.) So at considerable expense, they had built a series of mock-Egyptian Catacombs, all connected by this lengthy 'corridor.' The tombs themselves are simply called 'The Catacombs,' and somewhat perversely have turned this cemetery into a slightly bizarre tourist attraction.
So, while it doesn't much resemble the moving wall or the toaderdile's lurking place, there is technically a real Great Corridor of the Catacombs in Britain.