A cemetery might seem an odd place to start to look at a town, but you can always gain an understanding of past communities from a cemetery. And it's not just social issues - people's jobs, sizes of families, epidemics and illnesses, longevity and status - but also how styles and representation of death relate to society.

Here is the older part of the cemetery which has a range of different headstones and kerb details. There are even more imposing monuments at the entrance to the cemetery which reflect the social standing of the occupants' families. Different images of death are used all around: the urn; the broken column; the veiled grieving female figure. Tiny angels mark a child's grave.

I find it a little unnerving and surprising that a number of the family graves here at Cefn are marked with the lettering 'Entrance' but it seems sensible, as other family members would be added to the tomb.

Stratafication is clear in the older parts of the cemetery - the rich at the front, the poor at some distance away. Catholics and Protestants are separated in death and Jews are buried elsewhere.

In the newer part of the cemetery, the Council has regularised the way that the graves are marked and the gravestones are standardised in size and materials. There are no longer kerbstones, which means that the cemetery will be easier to maintain and will look tidier and better kept.

When you see graves that have become derelict and broken, you can understand the Council's concern but, I can't help feeling a twinge of nostalgia for the higgledy-piggledy arrangements of the older cemetery sections which are full of surprising juxtapositions, weird clashes of scale and individuality and the jagged silhouettes that give a romantic picture like a small town which has suffered an earthquake.

The setting of this cemetery, with its background of the Beacons, makes you wonder why the dead should be granted such a wonderful site and why we use so much land to commemorate past communities. Perhaps the smaller plots in the memorial garden near the entrance where ashes are interred suggest a simpler more sustainable way to commemorate our loved ones.