Rethinking the Image

Image source: https://strangelyfamiliar.co.uk/collections/pm0090 (Accessed: 18 September 2025). © Strangely Familiar

Peter Mitchell, The General Cemetery, Sheffield (1978).

Peter Mitchell is a documentary photographer, perhaps best known for his photography of Leeds in the 1970s and 1980s.^[1] It was during this period that he avidly documented the rapidly changing urban landscape of the city^[1][2] and of the wider North of England, as the region embarked on a long and difficult transition from industrial heartland to service economy.^[3]

In the context of Mitchell’s body of work, this photograph is unusual in its subject matter. Rather than presenting a predictable late-industrial scene, such as a dilapidated warehouse or a row of houses awaiting demolition, it puts forward a more timeless and peaceful subject – the cemetery.

Mitchell’s tendency to photograph subjects from neutral perspectives often brings clarity to particular topographical or architectural features,^[2] with this image being no exception. The solid, geometrical forms of the chapel entrance at the centre of the image (a typical example of Neoclassical architecture) are dramatic and imposing, exuding authority over the rest of the scene.

In the foreground of the image are a number of gravestones, set out in a seemingly unplanned and unsystematic way and varying greatly in size and style. Their arrangement is in stark contrast to the rigid symmetry of the chapel entrance that stands behind them, elegantly flanked by a pair of willow trees. In further contrast, the gravestones have begun to be obscured by low-lying foliage.

On closer inspection, the full extent of the decay and disrepair becomes apparent. The chapel entrance has been heavily stained by soot to the extent that some of its surface is almost black – a typical characteristic of buildings and other architectural features in late-industrial Northern England – and chunks of stone and brick are missing from similarly stained walls and gravestones, some of which are beginning to subside into the soft ground.

There is a certain rightness in the way in which this decadent commemoration of worldly life is slowly but decisively being reclaimed by nature, perhaps never to return. Although this photograph is atypical of Mitchell’s work, it nevertheless serves as a representation of change, decay, and regeneration in latent post-industrial England.

[1] Strangely Familiar (no date) About Peter Mitchell. Available at: https://strangelyfamiliar.co.uk/pages/about-peter-mitchell (Accessed: 18 September 2025).

[2] Strangely Familiar (no date) Explore. Available at: https://strangelyfamiliar.co.uk/pages/explore (Accessed: 18 September 2025).

[3] Lynes, M. (2021) The Forgotten Land: A Look at Northern England. Available at: https://thenewglobalorder.com/world-news/the-forgotten-land-a-look-at-northern-england/ (Accessed: 18 September 2025).