I got lost on the way out of a cemetery in Bucks County, Pa. yesterday. This was slightly embarrassing since I was escorting relatives from out of town who were completely unfamiliar with the local roads. I knew the roads. My problem was getting out on to the road.
Like many “memorial†parks, this one had roads that go in circles. Its sweeping access lanes are supposed to mingle with the greenery to create a pastoral feeling. Never mind that you are in a machine using fossil fuels to negotiate this “green†space. These sorts of burial grounds arose as alternatives to church cemeteries both to accommodate non-believes and to emphasize death as a wholesome form of rest, one not necessarily connected to church teaching about the fall, sin, death, and the resurrection.
These “secular†cemeteries were also designed to be more user friendly in that they functioned as parks where not only survivors of loved ones would go to continue to pay their respects on anniversaries and holidays but even those unrelated to the deceased might go to enjoy the scenery.
What any observer of urban history knows, though, is that grids function much better than cow paths when designing a city. William Penn’s original plan for Philadelphia, with streets running East and West between the Delaware and Schukyl rivers, and others running perpendicularly North and South between South and Vine Streets, made the city much easier for pedestrians, developers, and even drivers. Compared to Boston or New York which as villages relied on existing Native American and livestock trails, Philadelphia was a real city.
Church cemeteries (as well as military) tend to follow Penn’s ideas about arranging space – rows, grids, symmetry. They are more efficient by providing more space for bodies and they accommodate more visitors in search of loved ones.
Ironically, memorial parks tend to follow the patterns of suburban developers like William Levitt, who bequeathed to us Levittown. 
His subsections with pastoral names like Stonybrook, or Farmbrook, or Holly Hill, also included circular drives that surrounded winding streets to give, apparently, the featureless design of his homes a natural and inviting feel. What he didn’t account for was how many of the new residents in Levittown would get lost, like I did yesterday, because of curving lanes and cookie cutter facades.
Old Life 
I think it was an old Mad Magazine Day-by-Day calender where I first heard the line that a suburb is where they cut down all the trees and name streets after them. A modern cemetery is a place all about death yet it is where we are encouraged to “celebrate life.”
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Darryl
As someone from “across the pond” I can confirm that designing and building cities on a grid system is much more sensible than the cow path. But then it is also slightly less interesting!
In Cardiff (that’s in Wales to you Americans, which is not England, but is part of Great Britain) I used to work on a road called “The Golate” – only a commemorative plaque told me that this road used to adjoin the river Taff. People who missed the ferry / boat leaving upstream in Cardiff could run down to the “Go late” and catch the ferry there as it left port. Also a grid based city probably wouldn’t have at its centre a 19th Century Romantic Castle, built on top (yes literally on top) of Roman walls, which in place were ten feet thick. Call me “olde worlde” but I think I prefer the cow-path design.
As for cemeteries – curving lanes and cookie cutter facades – I just don’t know. 😉
Blessings
Matt
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Awesome post, it looks like a lot of hard work is involved behind this . . . Very helpful post. Thanks so much!
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Interesting observation on the Bucks Co. experience. Even more strange is to visit some of these places when faced with the unexpected passing of a family member and considering options.
It is alleged that in Colonial Boston, with its marshy backwaters and its famous Common ( a tiny elevated lump of dirt) they let contours dictate layout in church cemeteries. People were buried in family groupings and did not bother with symmetrical spacing, etc. It was not until the invention of the push lawn-mower that rows came into vogue; and the efficiency/convenience factor of the lawnmower prompted some cemeteries to just rearrange the markers into rows. I read about this along the Boston Freedom Trail, at the cemetery where the Franklin family (minus Ben) and Sam Adams are buried.
Makes me wonder how accurate the markers are at the Reformed Church in Blue Bell, PA, where there are some very old headstones (even a vet of War of 1812). I recall one Halloween, er, Reformation Day, working in that cemetery cutting grass and raking leaves until to dark to see any longer. I ain’t afraid of no ghosts.
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Interesting post.
So people could be buried in a place that forever makes a statement about their lack of belief?
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I like the idea of the dead being near where we worship, as it reinforces the idea of the church as a community of saints united over generations. Practically, the problem that leads to is when parts of the dead decide to enter the well water of the living. The oldest cemeteries around here (North of Pittsburgh) are churchyards. By about 1840, you start to see interdenominational/community cemeteries located just outside of town. I suspect that growing understanding of sanitation might be at least one factor. Frederick Law Olmstead was another. Victorians used to picnic at cemeteries, so perhaps they were more attuned to realities of death than we are.
BTW-Our fair Commonwealth still has very permissive home burial laws for interested do-it yourselfers.
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Thanks to my father who told me about this website, this webpage is really awesome.
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I love looking throug a post that will make people think.Also, thanks for allowing for me to comment!
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Arlen, we don’t force anything here!
Remember, we are among those known for antinomianism.
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