Wolvercote Cemetery, the final resting place of writer J.R.R. Tolkien

I have been a fan of J.R.R. Tolkien for years and "The Lord of the Rings" is the literary work that I like the most of the many that I have read.

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Highgate: the exotic and gloomy cemetery where 170,000 residents of London rest

The creator of Middle-earth was born in 1892 in Bloemfontein, in what was then the Orange Free State, in present-day South Africa. In addition to being a great writer, he was one of the best philologists of his time and worked as a professor of Anglo-Saxon at the University of Oxford. When he was three years old, Tolkien moved with his mother to England, where he spent most of his life (his immediate ancestors were from London and Birmingham, although the family had its origins in Prussia).

Tolkien carried out much of his activity in Oxford (57 kilometres west of London), although he and his wife usually spent the summer in Bournemouth, on the south coast of England.

It was there, in Bournemouth, that his wife, maiden name Edith Mary Bratt, died on 29 November 1971. After her death, her remains were buried in a grave in Wolvercote Parish Churchyard, Oxford. On her tombstone, her husband had his name inscribed, along with the word "Lúthien", the name of an Elven princess from his work who ended up marrying a man, Beren, in the most impressive and moving story of love, danger and death ever written about Middle-earth.

Tolkien died on 2 September 1973 in Bournemouth, and his remains were buried in his wife's grave. On her gravestone (above), next to his name and below Edith's, the name "Beren" was inscribed. Today, their graves can be visited in the Catholic section of Wolvercote Cemetery, which opened in 1889.

This cemetery contains the remains of more than 15,000 people of various religious denominations: Anglican Christians, English and Polish Catholic Christians, Greek and Russian Orthodox Christians, Quakers, Jews, Muslims and Baha'is. In addition, the cemetery has a section for babies who died before birth, which is unusual and which I find worthy of praise.

This cemetery contains the graves of many Oxford University professors and scholars. Among its inhabitants are Ernest Bennett, an academic, politician, writer, explorer and veteran of the Second Boer War; the famous social psychologist Michael Argyle, who was also a professor at Oxford University; the famous Latvian philosopher and historian Isaiah Berlin; the writer and biographer Humphrey Carpenter, a native of Oxford who was the author of a biography of J.R.R. Tolkien; and the English mathematician Edward Maitland Wright, among others.

Among the deceased from Wolvercote who deserve special mention are 45 soldiers from various countries of the Commonwealth of Nations, veterans of the First and Second World Wars. In the image above, on the right, you can see the gravestone of a Lieutenant of the British Royal Air Force (RAF).

The cemetery includes a burial chapel, built of stone. You can watch a video posted five years ago by Brad Beadel taking a tour of this cemetery here:

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Photos: Oxford City Council / Twooars / Commonwealth War Graves Commission.