Hundreds of bodies are buried beneath a tranquil park with a long and curious history.
Tucked between a church and a wharf in Bristol is a triangle of land known as the Quaker's Burial Ground.
As the name suggests the area was used to bury the city's Quaker population, from 1665 to 1923.
Although its main function is now as a public park, the man made Hermit's Cave provide access to the vaults below, Bristol Post reported.
The cave was carved into soft sandstone rock in the 14th century and provided a home to its first hermit, John Sparkes, in 1346.
Employed to live a solitary life to improve the fortunes of his master Thomas Lord Berkeley, Sparkes was the first of many to inhabit the small alcove over the centuries.
Little is known of the curious practice, which came to an end in the Bristol park during the 18th century when the Quakers took over.
Although many of the most prominent Bristol Quaker families profited from the West African slave trade in its early years, they eventually became amongst the first religious organisations to oppose it.
Their campaigns in Bristol are thought to have played a major role in turning the public’s opinion against the trade in human beings.
The small burial ground had become overcrowded by the 1920s and was given to the city in the 1950s by an organisation that had come to support cremation by that point.
