One of the oldest cemeteries in France, it opened in March 1793, eleven years before Père Lachaise in Paris!
Situated on a hillside at the foot of the city walls, on a 3-hectare slope, it enjoys a unique panorama. Among the 2,000 tombs, some present a highly varied range of funerary architectures and tell individual or family stories.
Many of the tombs are of personalities from Laon: clerics, former mayors and local notables, as well as craftsmen and shopkeepers – a social mosaic that retraces the life of Laon from the late 18th to the 19th century.
You’ll also see the obelisk erected in memory of the mobile guards killed in the explosion of the Laon citadel in September 1870, and the graves of eight Commonwealth soldiers.
It’s an atypical place in the town to discover, and one that has recently been enhanced by the Groupe de Recherches et d’Études du Cimetière Saint-Just (GRECS).