Nick Drake Grave — St Mary Magdalene, Tanworth-in-Arden

Nick Drake is buried in the churchyard of St Mary Magdalene in the village of Tanworth-in-Arden, Warwickshire, where his family had lived since his childhood. Drake died on 25 November 1974 at the age of 26, at his parents' home in the village — Far Leys, a large house where he had retreated following the collapse of his performing career and the severe depression that had consumed his final years. The cause of death was an overdose of amitriptyline, an antidepressant he had been prescribed. It is not definitively known whether the overdose was intentional.

Drake had recorded three studio albums — Five Leaves Left (1969), Bryter Layter (1970), and Pink Moon (1972) — that sold almost nothing during his lifetime but were reassessed in the decades after his death as some of the most beautiful and original recordings in the English folk tradition. His guitar tunings were idiosyncratic and deeply personal; his voice, quiet and intimate, seemed to speak from somewhere just outside ordinary experience. The orchestral arrangements on the first two albums, by Robert Kirby, gave his songs a lush melancholy perfectly suited to his melodies. Pink Moon — recorded alone in two nights at Sound Techniques studio in London — is a work of startling emotional nakedness.

The grave at Tanworth-in-Arden is maintained by the Drake family, who continue to live in the village, and is visited regularly by fans. The churchyard is peaceful and rural, set in the Warwickshire countryside south of Birmingham. A bench in the churchyard is dedicated to Drake's memory. The village of Tanworth-in-Arden is accessible from Birmingham by road and is occasionally the destination of Drake pilgrims who combine the visit with a journey to the Sound Techniques studio site in Chelsea, London.