London Cemeteries: An Illustrated Guide and Gazetteer

First published in 1981 by Avebury Publishing Company, Amersham, England.

Second, third, fourth and fifth editions published in 1985, 1994, 2008 and 2011.

This sixth edition published in 2023 by The History Press

97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,

Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© Hugh Meller and Brian Parsons, 1981, 1985, 1994, 2008, 2011, 2023

The right of Hugh Meller and Brian Parsons to be identified as the Authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 7524 9690 0

Typesetting and origination by Typo•glyphix, Burton-on-Trent DE14 3HE.

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ Books Limited, Padstow, Cornwall.

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

Contents

The Cemeteries

Map

List of Illustrations

Authors’ Note to the Sixth Edition

Introduction

1    History

2    Planning

3    Monuments and Buildings

4    Epitaphs

5    Flora and Fauna

Gazetteer

Notes

Bibliography

About the Authors

The Cemeteries

1.   Abney Park Cemetery, Stoke Newington High Street, N16

2.   Acton Cemetery, Park Royal Road, NW10

3.   Alperton (Wembley) Cemetery, Clifford Road, Wembley

4.   Bandon Hill Cemetery, Plough Lane, Wallington

5.   Barkingside Cemetery, Longwood Gardens, Ilford

6.   Barnes Common Cemetery, off Rocks Lane, SW13

7.   Battersea St Mary’s Cemetery, Bolingbroke Grove, SW11

8.   Beckenham Cemetery and Crematorium (formerly Crystal Palace District Cemetery), Elmers End Road, SE20

9.   Beckenham Cemetery (London Road), London Road, Bromley

10.   Bedfont Cemetery, Bedfont Road, Feltham

11.   Bexleyheath Cemetery, Banks Lane, Broadway, Bexleyheath

12.   Biggin Hill Cemetery, Kingsmead Road, Biggin Hill

13.   Borough Cemetery, Powder Mill Lane, Twickenham

14.   Breakspear Crematorium, Ruislip Road, Ruislip

15.   Brockley and Ladywell Cemetery, Brockley Road, SE4

16.   Bromley Hill Cemetery, Bromley Hill, Bromley

17.   Brompton Cemetery, Old Brompton Road, SW5

18.   Brookwood Cemetery, Pirbright Road, Brookwood, Woking, Surrey

19.   Buckingham Road Cemetery, Buckingham Road, Ilford

20.   Bunhill Fields, City Road, EC1

21.   Camberwell New Cemetery and Honor Oak Crematorium, Brenchley Gardens, SE23

22.   Camberwell Old Cemetery, Forest Hill Road, SE22

23.   Carpenders Park Cemetery, Oxhey Lane, Watford

24.   Chadwell Heath Cemetery, Whalebone Lane North, Dagenham

25.   Charlton Cemetery, Cemetery Lane, SE7

26.   Cherry Lane Cemetery, Cherry Lane, West Drayton

27.   Chingford Mount Cemetery, Old Church Road, E4

28.   Chislehurst Cemetery, Beaverwood Road, Chislehurst

29.   Chiswick New Cemetery, Staveley Road, W4

30.   Chiswick Old Cemetery, Corney Road, W4

31.   City of London Cemetery and Crematorium, Aldersbrook Road, E12

32.   Croydon Cemetery and Crematorium, Mitcham Road, Croydon

33.   Cuddington Cemetery, Lindsay Road, Worcester Park

34.   East London Cemetery and Crematorium, Grange Road, E13

35.   East Sheen Cemetery, Sheen Road, Richmond

36.   Eastbrookend Cemetery, The Chase, off Dagenham Road, Dagenham

37.   Eastcote Lane Cemetery, Eastcote Lane, South Harrow

38.   Edmonton Cemetery, Church Street, N19

39.   Eltham Cemetery and Crematorium, Rochester Way, SE9

40.   Enfield Cemetery and Crematorium, Great Cambridge Road, Enfield

41.   Erith Cemetery, Brook Street, Erith

42.   Feltham Cemetery, Sunbury Road, Feltham

43.   Forest Park Cemetery and Crematorium, Forest Road, Hainault

44.   Fulham Cemetery, Fulham Palace Road, SW6

45.   Gardens of Peace Muslim Cemetery, Elmbridge Road, Hainault

46.   Golders Green Crematorium, Hoop Lane, NW11

47.   Greenford Park Cemetery, Windmill Lane, Greenford

48.   Greenlawn Memorial Park Cemetery, Chelsham Road, Warlingham

49.   Greenwich Cemetery, Well Hall Road, SE9

50.   Grove Park Cemetery, Marvels Lane, SE12

51.   Gunnersbury Cemetery, Gunnersbury Avenue, W4

52.   Hammersmith New Cemetery (Mortlake Cemetery) and Mortlake Crematorium, Clifford Avenue, SW14

53.   Hampstead Cemetery, Fortune Green Road, NW6

54.   Harrow Cemetery, Pinner Road, Harrow

55.   Harrow Weald Cemetery, Clamp Hill, Stanmore

56.   Hatton Cemetery, Faggs Road, Feltham

57.   Havelock Road Cemetery, Havelock Road, Southall

58.   Hendon Cemetery and Crematorium, Holders Hill Road, NW4

59.   Hertford Road Cemetery, Hertford Road, Enfield

60.   Highgate Cemetery, Swains Lane, N6

61.   Hillingdon and Uxbridge Cemetery, Hillingdon Hill, Hillingdon

62.   Hillview Cemetery, Wickham Street, Welling

63.   Hither Green Cemetery and Lewisham Crematorium, Verdant Lane, SE6

64.   Hortus Cemetery, Merrick Road, Southall

65.   Hounslow Cemetery, Hanworth Road, Hounslow

66.   Huguenot Burial Ground, East Hill, SW18

67.   Isleworth Cemetery, Park Road, Isleworth

68.   Islington St Pancras Cemetery and Crematorium, High Road, N12

69.   Jewish Cemetery, Alderney Road, E1

70.   Jewish Cemetery, Brady Street, E1

71.   Jewish Cemetery, Buckingham Road, E15

72.   Jewish Cemetery, Edgwarebury Lane, Edgware

73.   Jewish Cemetery, Fulham Road, SW3

74.   Jewish Cemetery, Glebe Road, NW10

75.   Jewish Cemetery, Hoop Lane, NW11

76.   Jewish Cemetery, Kingsbury Road, N1

77.   Jewish Cemetery, Lauriston Road, E9

78.   Jewish Cemetery (Federation), Montagu Road, N18

79.   Jewish Cemetery (Western), Montagu Road, N18

80.   Jewish Cemetery (New Sephardi), Mile End Road, E1

81.   Jewish Cemetery (Old Sephardi), Mile End Road, E1

82.   Jewish Cemetery, Plashet Park, High Street, E12

83.   Jewish Cemetery, Pound Lane, NW10

84.   Jewish Cemetery, Rowan Road, SW16

85.   Jewish Cemetery, Sandford Road, E6

86.   Jewish Cemetery, Upminster Road North, Rainham

87.   Kemnal Park (‘Green Acres’) Cemetery and Ceremonial Park, Sidcup Bypass, Chislehurst

88.   Kensal Green (All Souls) Cemetery and West London Crematorium, Harrow Road, W10

89.   Kensington Hanwell Cemetery, Uxbridge Road, W7

90.   Kingston Cemetery and Crematorium, Bonner Hill Road, Kingston

91.   Lambeth Cemetery, Blackshaw Road, SW17

92.   Lavender Hill and Strayfield Road Cemeteries, Cedar Road, Enfield

93.   London Road (Mitcham) Cemetery, London Road, Mitcham

94.   Manor Park Cemetery and Crematorium, Sebert Road, E7

95.   Margravine Cemetery, Margravine Road, W6

96.   Merton and Sutton Joint Cemetery, Garth Road, Morden

97.   Mitcham Cemetery, Church Road, Mitcham

98.   Morden Cemetery and North East Surrey Crematorium, Lower Morden Lane, Morden

99.   Mortlake Old Cemetery, South Worple Way, SW14

100.   Mortlake Roman Catholic Cemetery, North Worple Way, SW14

101.   New Brentford Cemetery, Sutton Lane, Hounslow

102.   New Southgate Cemetery and Crematorium (formerly The Great Northern Cemetery), Brunswick Park Road, N11

103.   North Sheen Cemetery, Lower Richmond Road, SW14

104.   Northwood Cemetery, Chestnut Avenue, Northwood

105.   Nunhead Cemetery, Linden Grove, SE15

106.   Paddington Cemetery, Mill Hill, Milespit Hill, NW7

107.   Paddington Old Cemetery, Willesden Lane, NW2

108.   Paines Lane Cemetery, Paines Lane, Pinner

109.   Pinner Cemetery, Pinner Road, Pinner

110.   Plaistow Cemetery, Burnt Ash Lane, Bromley

111.   Plumstead Cemetery, Wickham Lane, SE2

112.   Putney Lower Common Cemetery, Mill Hill Road, SW13

113.   Putney Vale Cemetery and Crematorium, Stag Lane, SW15

114.   Queen’s Road Cemetery, Queen’s Road, Croydon

115.   Rainham Cemetery, Upminster Road North, Rainham

116.   Richmond Cemetery, Grove Road, Richmond

117.   Rippleside Cemetery, Ripple Road, Barking

118.   Roding Lane North Cemetery, Roding Lane North, South Woodford

119.   Romford Cemetery, Crow Lane, Romford

120.   Royal Hospital Chelsea Burial Ground, Royal Hospital Road, SW3

121.   Royal Hospital Greenwich Cemetery, Chevening Road, SE10

122.   St Luke’s Cemetery, Magpie Hall Lane, Bromley

123.   St Marylebone Cemetery and Crematorium, East End Road, N3

124.   St Mary Cray Cemetery, Star Lane, St Mary Cray

125.   St Mary’s Roman Catholic Cemetery, Kensal Green, Harrow Road, NW10

126.   St Patrick’s Roman Catholic Cemetery, Langthorne Road, E11

127.   St Thomas’s Roman Catholic Cemetery, Rylston Road, SW6

128.   Sidcup Cemetery, Foots Cray Road, Sidcup

129.   South Ealing Cemetery, South Ealing Road, W5

130.   Southgate Cemetery, Waterfall Road, N14

131.   South West Middlesex Crematorium, Hounslow Road, Hanworth

132.   Streatham Cemetery, Garratt Lane, SW17

133.   Streatham Park Cemetery and South London Crematorium, Rowan Road, SW16

134.   Surbiton Cemetery, Lower Marsh Lane, Surbiton

135.   Sutton Cemetery, Alcorn Close, Sutton

136.   Teddington Cemetery, Shacklegate Lane, Teddington

137.   Tottenham Cemetery, Prospect Place, N17

138.   Tottenham Park Cemetery, Montagu Road, N18

139.   Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park, Southern Grove, E3

140.   Trent Park Cemetery, Cockfosters Road, Cockfosters

141.   Twickenham Cemetery, Hospital Bridge Road, Twickenham

142.   Upminster Cemetery and South Essex Crematorium, Ockenden Road, Upminster

143.   Walthamstow Cemetery, Queen’s Road, E17

144.   Wandsworth Cemetery, Magdalen Road, SW18

145.   Wealdstone Cemetery, Byron Road, Harrow

146.   West Drayton Cemetery, Harmondsworth Road, West Drayton

147.   West Ham Cemetery, Cemetery Road, E7

148.   West Norwood (South Metropolitan) Cemetery and Crematorium, Norwood High Street, SE24

149.   Westminster Cemetery, Uxbridge Road, W7

150.   Willesden Cemetery, Franklyn Road, NW10

151.   Wimbledon Cemetery, Gap Road, SW19

152.   Wood Green Cemetery, Wolves Lane, N22

153.   Woodgrange Park Cemetery, Romford Road, E7

154.   Woolwich Cemeteries, King’s Highway and Camdale Road, SE18

Map of Cemeteries

List of Illustrations

Frontispiece: Nunhead Cemetery: A fallen angel.

p. xxiii Wreath sellers in Islington (1906).

p. xxiv A funeral procession at St Mary’s RC Kensal Green (c.1906).

p.3 Victoria Park: Following clearance in 1894 all that remains of the cemetery is the entrance, believed to be designed by Arthur Ashpitel. It is now called Meath Gardens.

p. 5 Consecrated ground: illustration by Phiz for Dickens’ Bleak House (1852–53).

p. 5 An advertisement for Brookwood with an artist’s impression of the railway through the cemetery (c.1900). (Courtesy of John Clarke)

p. 6 Golders Green: ‘The world’s foremost crematorium…’.

p. 7 Kensal Green: London’s first garden cemetery. The tomb on the left commemorates Princess Sophia (1848).

p. 8 A coffin being loaded onto a train at the London Necropolis station, Westminster Bridge Road, for the journey to Brookwood (c.1906).

p. 9 Kingsbury Lawn Cemetery: ‘The abandoned chapel’.

p. 12 The Garden of Peace: One of London’s newest cemeteries.

p. 15 Woodcut.

p. 16 The Pyramid: ‘of Sepulchral magnificence unequalled in the world’…but never built. (Courtesy of Guildhall Library, City of London)

p. 17 Kensal Green: A view towards the Anglican chapel. (The Mirror of Literature, Amusement and Instruction, 1838)

p. 18 Directors and shareholders of the Great Southern Cemetery, Crematorium and Land Company gather on the proposed site of the cemetery (c.1909).

p. 19 Streatham Park: An announcement of the proposed cemetery from The Undertakers’ Journal (September 1907).

p. 20 The City of London: A romantic vista looking across the City of London Cemetery. In the distance can be seen the semi-circular catacombs that once occupied the site of a large fishpond that was drained when the cemetery was planned. (The Illustrated Times, 1856)

p. 21 Merton & Sutton: The twentieth-century lawn cemetery concept.

p. 24 Monument to Dr Issac Watts at Abney Park from Modern Tombs Gleaned from the Public Cemeteries of London by Arthur Hakewill (1851).

p. 25 The premises of monumental masons, Henry Dunkley, adjacent to Abney Park Cemetery in Stoke Newington.

p. 25 The Rothschild mausoleum at West Ham Jewish Cemetery by Sir Matthew Digby Wyatt (1866).

p. 26 The Molyneux mausoleum at Kensal Green by John Gibson (1864).

p. 27 The Berens sarcophagus at West Norwood by Edward Barry. (The Builder, 20 November 1858)

p. 27 Detail on a tile on the side of the Berens sarcophagus.

p. 28 The Ralli family’s Doric mortuary chapel at West Norwood by James Knowles (1872).

p. 29 Detail on the Doulton mausoleum at West Norwood (1897).

p. 29 Kensal Green: ‘An unparalleled folly’ – the Ducrow mausoleum (1835).

p. 30 Alexander Gordon’s Egyptian-style mausoleum at Putney Vale (1910).

p. 30 A garden memorial; a typical design of the interwar period.

p. 30 The car in polished granite on the March grave (2009) at Manor Park. Similar vehicles can be seen at Grove Park and Tottenham Park.

p. 31 An empty chair in red granite at Pinner ‘commemorates Susan Dunsford’ (1954).

p. 32 Monoplane at Croydon in memory of Captain Leslie Thomas (1937).

p. 32 The airman on the Bennett grave at Eltham (1938).

p. 33 The life-size figure on the Lowndes memorial at Beckenham Cemetery & Crematorium (1911). An identical but decapitated and toppled figure can be found on Lord Rodney’s grave at Camberwell Old Cemetery.

p. 33 Lions couchant on the Bostock memorial at Abney Park (1917) …

p. 33 … and on the Groves memorial at Streatham Park.

p. 34 Brompton: Val Prinsep’s Gothic-style sarcophagus, in Sienese marble (1904).

p. 36 Mosaic on the Edwards grave (1918) at Chiswick Old.

p. 36 Robed figure in bronze on the King grave at Hendon by William King (1919).

p. 37 Bronze memorial on the Broad grave (1895) by Aristide Fabbrucci at Margravine.

p. 37 The bronze figure by an unnamed sculptor on the Greig grave at St Luke’s Bromley.

p. 38 Brompton: Frederick Leyland’s remarkable tomb – a unique example of Arts and Crafts funerary design by Edward Burne-Jones (1892).

p. 39 West Norwood: The Gothic-traceried Farrow tomb (1854) restored in 1999.

p. 39 A wooden graveboard on the Mallett grave at Hendon (1905).

p. 39 An iron grave surround.

p. 40 The Stacchini mausoleum at Islington St Pancras (1958).

p. 42 The restored Conde de Bayona y Marquis de Misa mausoleum at St Mary’s Kensal Green.

p. 43 City of London: Catacomb and columbarium for funerary ashes (1856).

p. 44 The chapels at South Ealing Cemetery by the borough surveyor, Charles Jones (1861).

p. 44 Exception to Gothic tradition: Renaissance chapels at Willesden (1891) by Charles Worley. Sadly, they were demolished in 1986. (Courtesy of Brent Archive)

p. 44 One of the pair of chapels at Streatham by William Newton-Dunn (1892).

p. 45 The chapel at Rippleside by Charles Dawson (1886) who drew inspiration from St Margaret’s Church and the Curfew Tower in Barking for the design.

p. 45 Hoop Lane Jewish Cemetery: The twin red brick and terracotta tiled halls for conducting the burial service.

p. 46 Hendon: The reredos by Cantagalli (1899) is a facsimile of Luca della Robbia’s Resurrection in Florence Cathedral.

p. 47 The mosaic reredos at Richmond’s Grove Gardens Chapel (formerly the cemetery chapel).

p. 48 West Norwood Crematorium. The third crematorium to open in London, the crematory was added to the nonconformist chapel in 1915.

p. 48 Demolished: One of the chapels at Camberwell by George Gilbert Scott photographed in 1969. (Courtesy of the City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)

p. 49 Demolished: The chapel by England and Brown at Chingford Mount (1884) in 1980.

p. 50 Described as ‘Hacienda deco’ in style, Mortlake Crematorium was designed by the Hammersmith borough surveyor, F. Douglas Barton (1939).

p. 51 West London Crematorium by G. Berkeley Willis (1939).

p. 51 South West Middlesex Crematorium by John Denman (1954). The large chapel on the right was added in 1974.

p. 53 Greenford Park: Both the original lodge (pictured here) and its replacement have disappeared.

p. 53 The lodge at Westminster (1854), the largest in London.

p. 54 Hammersmith New: A brick gate pier with acorn finial in Portland stone (1926).

p. 55 The railings at St Pancras.

p. 55 Finial mitre design at Putney Lower Common.

p. 55 West Norwood gates: ‘This massive iron enceinte’.

p. 56 Anchor at Richmond.

p. 56 Angel at East Sheen.

p. 56 Butterfly at East Sheen.

p. 56 Dove at Fulham.

p. 57 Gateway at East Sheen.

p. 57 Hands clasped (of husband and wife) at Fulham Palace Road.

p. 57 Hourglass at Abney Park.

p. 58 Lamp alight at Mortlake RC.

p. 58 Lily at Fulham.

p. 58 Skull at Bunhill Fields.

p. 58 Torch upturned at Highgate.

p. 59 Tree, cut by the hand of God at Abney Park.

p. 59 Urn, draped, at Brompton.

p. 59 Weeping willow at Abney Park.

p. 62 Epitaph at Putney Lower Common.

p. 63 An iron grave marker at Walthamstow (1921).

p. 66 The grave of M.P. Will Crook (1921) at Tower Hamlets.

p. 69 Edmonton: Grass cutting.

p. 69 Highgate: Preparing flowers for planting on graves (1906).

p. 70 A view of the New Southgate Cemetery (formerly The Great Northern Cemetery). Note the lavish planting beside the road and the mature trees (c.1930).

p. 72 Abney Park: The spread of vegetation (1980).

p. 73 Abney Park: Ivy (1980).

p. 74 Abney Park: The chapel (1840) in the early years of the twentieth century. The growth of trees prevents this view being taken today.

p. 76 Abney Park: Detail on a gate pier.

p. 77 Abney Park: Indicative monument to John Jones, ‘for many years a member of the South Hornsey Local Board’ (1883).

p. 82 Acton: Trumpet on tomb of Edward Howard Reynolds (1898).

p. 86 Battersea St Mary’s: The chapels are perfect miniatures (1860).

p. 87 Battersea St Mary’s: The large flaming urn commemorates Kaikhoshru Puntheki (1890).

p. 89 Beckenham Cemetery and Crematorium: Plans of the cemetery chapels, from The Architect (1875).

p. 90 Beckenham Cemetery and Crematorium: Memorial to the cricketer, W.G. Grace (1915).

p. 90 Beckenham Cemetery and Crematorium: The grave of Henry Lowndes can be seen on the right and the consecrated chapel (now demolished) is in the background.

p. 96 Brockley: Detail on the gate at the Ladywell entrance.

p. 97 Brockley: The cemetery (1906); the chapels can be seen dimly in the distance.

p. 99 Bromley Hill: The Fuller memorial (1935).

p. 100 Brompton: The chapel (1840).

p. 100 Brompton: Gates to the catacombs.

p. 100 Brompton: Italianate Baroque, the San Giorgi monument (1903).

p. 101 Brompton: Robert Coombes’ monument with uniformed scullers, now defaced (1890).

p. 101 Brompton: An imperious lion on John ‘Gentleman’ Jackson’s tomb (1872) photographed in 1980. The urn has since disappeared.

p. 112 Brompton: ‘Courage: initiative: intrepidity.’ The memorial to Flight Sub Lieut. Reginald Warneford (1915).

p. 113 Brompton: The burial of Flight Sub Lieut. Warneford.

p. 114 Brookwood: The Pelham Clinton-Memorial (c.1898).

p. 115 Brookwood: St Andrew’s Avenue (c.1910).

p. 120 Bunhill Fields.

p. 120 Bunhill Fields: Tomb of Dame Mary Page (1728).

p. 121 Bunhill Fields: John Bunyan’s memorial by Edgar Papworth erected in 1862.

p. 127 Camberwell New: The chapels. (The Builder, 12 April 1929)

p. 129 Camberwell Old: The layout of the cemetery.

p. 130 Camberwell Old: The statue on Lord Rodney’s grave ‘on guard’ no longer.

p. 130 Camberwell Old: The three chapels (demolished) and lodge.

p. 132 Chadwell Heath: The front elevation of the chapel (1934).

p. 132 Charlton: The layout of the cemetery. (The Illustrated London News, 1857)

p. 133 Charlton: Detail from the tomb of Thomas Murphy (1932).

p. 133 Charlton: The tomb of Jemima Ayley (1860). Further deterioration has taken place since this photograph was taken in 1980.

p. 137 Chingford Mount: The entrance and lodge (1884), now demolished.

p. 138 Chingford Mount: Beehives on the Norwood vault (1872). A single beehive can also be found on the Norwood grave at Abney Park (1864).

p. 141 Chiswick New: The ‘Great West Road’-style chapel designed by the borough surveyor, Joseph Musto (1933).

p. 142 Chiswick Old: Bronze table tomb to James McNeill Whistler (1903). The corner statuettes are resin replacements.

p. 143 Chiswick Old: Memorial to James Hitch (1913).

p. 143 Chiswick Old: The Resurrection by Edward Bainbridge Copnall on the grave of Sir Percy Harris (1955).

p. 145 City of London: The entrance gates (c.1900).

p. 146 City of London: The Dissenters’ chapel by William Haywood. (The Builder, 19 January 1856)

p. 147 City of London: Memorial to piano teacher Gladys Spencer (1931).

p. 148 City of London: The Vigiland memorial (1952).

p. 154 Croydon: Memorial to headmaster John Drage (1900).

p. 157 East Sheen: The Rennie-O’Mahoney memorial (1928).

p. 158 East Sheen: ‘the angel of Death…’ The Lancaster bronze by Sydney March (1920).

p. 161 Edmonton: Plans for the chapels. (The Building News, 1889)

p. 167 Fulham Palace Road: The tympanum above the chapel door depicting the Resurrection.

p. 168 Golders Green: The Philipson mausoleum by Sir Edwin Lutyens (1914).

p. 169 Golders Green: The Smith mausoleum by Paul Phipps (1904–05).

p. 169 Golders Green: Ghanshyamdas Birla memorial (1983) looking towards the cloister.

p. 170 Golders Green: The Watkins memorial in the cloister by Mary Watts of the Compton Pottery (1920).

p. 170 Golders Green: Into the Silent Land by Henry Pegram (1924 and installed in 1937).

p. 179 Grove Park: The date of the cemetery’s opening in 1935 is noted on this Portland Stone drinking fountain in the form of an urn.

p. 180 Gunnersbury: The black obelisk of the Katyn memorial.

p. 184 Hampstead: View of the cemetery. (The Builder, 1876)

p. 185 Hampstead: The Bianchi monument (c.1938).

p. 186 Hampstead: Church organ in memory of Charles Barritt (1929).

p. 187 Hampstead: The Wilson sarcophagus, ‘a respectable imitation of an Egyptian temple’.

p. 187 Hampstead: The snake-entwined bronze urn on the Frankau grave (1904). It was stolen in 1997.

p. 188 Hampstead: Tomb sculpted by Sir William Goscombe John (1923). The bronze figure has been stolen.

p. 194 Hendon: The entrance shortly after opening.

p. 194 Hendon: The burial chapel (c.1905).

p. 196 Highgate: Karl Marx memorial (1956) and visitors. Photographed in 1980.

p. 197 Highgate: The catacombs. The Beer mausoleum now occupies a prominent position on the terrace. (The Mirror of Literature, Amusement and Instruction, 3 November 1838)

p. 197 Highgate: The Beer mausoleum (1880).

p. 197 Highgate: George Wombwell’s memorial (1880) photographed in 1980 before the undergrowth was cleared.

p. 198 Highgate: The Egyptian Avenue photographed in 1956.

p. 214 Hillingdon: The entrance on Hillingdon Hill by Benjamin Ferrey (1855).

p. 215 Hither Green: The chapel by Francis Thorne (1873).

p. 217 Hounslow: The tree trunk draped with a bandolier and rifle commemorating Frederick Rawlins (1900).

p. 219 Islington St Pancras: The lodge (1900). It was demolished in 1970.

p. 220 Islington St Pancras: Memorial commemorating Alfred Smith and Harry Gardner.

p. 221 Islington St Pancras: Percival Spencer’s memorial – the balloon has been removed since this photo was taken in 1980.

p. 222 Islington St Pancras: The Mond mausoleum by Darcy Braddell (1909).

p. 222 Islington St Pancras: The grave of William French (1896).

p. 229 Jewish Glebe Road: The Rosenberg tombs (1904–35).

p. 240 Jewish Plashet Park: Consecrating a memorial, from Living London (1906).

p. 241 Jewish Pound Lane: The memorial to Benno Elkan (1960).

p. 243 Jewish Sandford Road: The ohel by Harry Ford (1924).

p. 246 Kensal Green: The ‘towering Gothic confection’ tomb of John Gibson, by J.S. Farley, monumental masons (1894).

p. 247 Kensal Green: A view down the central avenue towards the Anglican chapel (c.1910).

p. 253 Kensal Green: Sir William Casement’s mausoleum by E.M. Lander (1844).

p. 255 Kensal Green: Baroque angels over Mary Gibson’s Corinthian temple monument by J.S. Farley (1870).

p. 261 Kensal Green: Renaissance-style shrine sheltering the effigy on the Mulready tomb by Godfrey Sykes (1863).

p. 263 Kensal Green: The Ricketts tomb by William Burges (1867).

p. 264 Kensal Green: The Sievier family monument (1865).

p. 266 Kensal Green: The Cooke family monument (1866) by Thomas Milnes photographed in 1980. Since then it has been damaged.

p. 267 Kensal Green: The Dissenters’ chapel by John Griffith, restored in 1997.

p. 269 Kensington Hanwell: The entrance arch by Thomas Allom (1855).

p. 270 Kensington Hanwell: Memorial to Edgar Smith, conchologist (1916).

p. 272 Kingston: The bronze figure by Richard Goulden on the Burton grave (1908).

p. 273 Lambeth: Perspective view of the cemetery. (The Builder, 29 April 1854)

p. 274 Lambeth: The burial of Dan Leno (1904).

p. 278 Margravine: Detail on the memorial to gold digger Abe Smith (1923).

p. 281 Morden: The poplar avenue in 1910. The chapels were converted into the North East Surrey Crematorium in 1958.

p. 284 Mortlake RC: Sir Richard Burton’s stone ‘tent’ (1890).

p. 286 New Southgate: The chapel designed by Alexander Spurr (1861). The spire is 120ft high.

p. 286 New Southgate: A view of the gates on Brunswick Park Road before their relocation into the cemetery grounds.

p. 291 Nunhead: James Bunning’s entrance gates.

p. 292 Nunhead: The chapel before restoration by Thomas Little (1840).

p. 292 Nunhead: The chapel after restoration.

p. 293 Nunhead: The restored terracotta Stearns mausoleum (c.1900) designed by George and Peto.

p. 294 Nunhead: Detail on the Stearns mausoleum by Doulton of Lambeth.

p. 302 Paddington Old: The chapels by Thomas Little (1855).

p. 307 Putney Lower Common: The entrance lodge (1855).

p. 308 Putney Vale: The entrance (1900). The chapel was converted to a crematorium in 1938, badly burned by fire in 1946 and reopened in 1956.

p. 312 Putney Vale: One of three Ismay memorials by Alfred Gerrard (1937).

p. 313 Putney Vale: The memorial to Caroline Lyons (1924).

p. 317 Richmond: Detail on the Bugmore grave (1902).

p. 319 Richmond: The tomb of William Harvey, engraver (1866).

p. 320 Richmond: Passion flowers and lilies decorate the Prendergast memorials.

p. 327 St Marylebone: The crematorium, designed by Sir Edwin Cooper, opened in 1937.

p. 328 St Marylebone: The interior of the Glenesk mausoleum by Sir Arthur Blomfield (1908).

p. 330 St Marylebone: The memorial to Thomas Skarratt Hall (1903) showing the bronze angels which were stolen in 1989.

p. 331 St Marylebone: Tomb of Harry Ripley by Sir William Reid-Dick (1914).

p. 332 St Marylebone: Tomb of Thomas Tate by F. Lynn Jenkins (1909).

p. 333 St Mary’s RC: Bronze relief of the Holy Family on the Connolly grave (1933).

p. 334 St Mary’s RC: The Emmet mausoleum (1915).

p. 335 St Mary’s RC: The Campbell family’s Byzantine mausoleum by C.H.B. Quennell (1904).

p. 340 St Patrick’s RC: The Ferrari mausoleum (1965).

p. 346 Streatham: ‘A garden job’ on the Krall grave (1903).

p. 347 Streatham: The blue terracotta temple commemorating Henry Budden (1907).

p. 348 Streatham Park: ‘He lived as he died a cyclist’ – Maurice Selbach (1935). Photograph taken in 1980 before the memorial was removed.

p. 349 Streatham Park: South London Crematorium by John Bannen which opened in 1936.

p. 352 Sutton: The chapel by E.W. Crickmay (1900).

p. 353 Teddington: The ‘Typically Victorian’ chapels by T. Goodchild (1879).

p. 355 Tottenham: The chapels by George Pritchett (1856) before enlargement of the cemetery.

p. 355 Tottenham: The tunnel under the footpath dividing the cemetery.

p. 357 Tower Hamlets: The Anglican chapel by Thomas Wyatt and David Brandon.

p. 358 Tower Hamlets: The nonconformist chapel by Thomas Wyatt and David Brandon, from The Illustrated London News (1849).

p. 363 Twickenham: Francis Francis’s tomb (1886). Regrettably the fishing rod is now missing.

p. 365 Walthamstow: The chapels by R.C. Sutton (1872). Unusually, they are positioned at right angles.

p. 366 Wandsworth: The chapels by H.W. Young are on either side of the drive.

p. 369 West Drayton: There are several examples of this type of contemporary memorial in the cemetery.

p. 369 West Drayton: Stone benches are an increasingly popular feature in London’s cemeteries, others may be found in Borough Cemetery, Islington St Pancras and St Mary’s Cray.

p. 370 West Ham: Memorial to Sub-Officer Henry Vickers and Fireman Frederick Sell who died in the Silvertown explosion in 1917.

p. 371 West Norwood: The entrance (1905). The lodge was demolished in 1936 and the current building dates from 1950.

p. 372 West Norwood: Completed before his death in 1939, the mausoleum commemorates Edmund Distin Maddick.

p. 372 West Norwood: The Anglican chapel by Sir William Tite, demolished 1960.

p. 373 West Norwood: Contrasts. To the rear is Sir William Tite’s monument for the banker J.W. Gilbart (1866); in the foreground, millstone grit monolith by George Godwin for John Britton (1857).

p. 374 West Norwood: Memorial to John Wimble (1851) on the ship path.

p. 375 West Norwood: Detail on the Brown memorial (1884).

p. 392 Wimbledon: The Cooke mausoleum (1885). It has been vandalized since this photograph was taken in 1980 and is currently is a very poor condition.

p. 394 Woodgrange Park: Artist’s impression of the chapel by W. Gilbee Scott, from The Architect (1889).

p. 395 Woodgrange Park: The chapel in 2005. It was demolished a year later.

p. 395 Woodgrange Park: The scene in this image of the entrance to Woodgrange Park cemetery has changed beyond recognition as the railings, gates, lodge and chapel have been replaced by housing, a car park and a new lodge.

p. 397 Woolwich: The lodge and chapel on the right have been demolished.

p. 398 Brompton: Notice to visitors.

p. 450 Sutton: ‘Without fear’.

Authors’ Note to the Sixth Edition

Since 1981, when the first edition of this book appeared, there has been a marked renewal in all aspects of the management and history of cemeteries. Prior to that date little had been written on the subject and even now it is only the ‘magnificent seven’ – Kensal Green, West Norwood, Highgate, Nunhead, Abney Park, Brompton and Tower Hamlets – which have been well documented, each supported by their own ‘Friends’ group.

This sixth edition seeks to provide a comprehensive guide to all the cemeteries of London. In defining cemeteries, churchyards have been excluded and the scope has been limited to burial grounds unattached to any one parish church or chapel. They are nearly always owned by a local authority, a private company or religious organisation, usually with a funerary building or buildings within the grounds and not merely confined to any one religious denomination. (The Jewish cemeteries are the principal exception.) Only existing and accessible grounds are included; not all are still in use but the long-lost plague pits, hospital, ‘private and promiscuous’ grounds referred to in Mrs Holmes’ pioneering book The London Burial Grounds (1896) are excluded.

The first edition contained 100 entries; a further three cemeteries were added to the second and third, while the fourth had 126. This edition contains entries for 154 cemeteries, representing the great majority in the London boroughs. Although well outside this boundary, but integral to the development of London’s nineteenth-century cemeteries, the vast Brookwood Cemetery at Woking is also included.

A minor problem has been caused by the multiplicity of names by which some cemeteries are known. Several changes have been made: Battersea New is now Morden Cemetery and North East Surrey Crematorium; Crystal Palace District Cemetery is now Beckenham Cemetery and Crematorium; Ealing and Old Brentford is now South Ealing Cemetery; Edmonton and Southgate is simply Southgate Cemetery; St Pancras and Islington is now Islington St Pancras Cemetery; Mitcham, London Road has become London Road (Mitcham); Hammersmith Old has been changed to Margravine Cemetery; and ‘Park’ has been appended to Tower Hamlets Cemetery. For cemeteries with a crematorium this too has been included in the title. The date of founding indicates when work commenced on preparing the cemetery grounds; it is not necessarily the date of the first burial.

Each cemetery description includes a selection of notable persons buried or commemorated therein adding up to over 2,000 names in all. These were picked as far as possible for their historical importance or curiosity. Many of them are still familiar to us today but hard choices had to be made when faced, for example, with the 700 names selected by researchers at Kensal Green.

The names are indexed in a single alphabetical list at the end for ease of research. There is also a separate index of architects, artists and sculptors whose work is represented in the cemeteries.

In producing the book, expert help has been acquired from many. Those who deserved a particular mention include Reg Broadhurst, who cut the wood engravings; Mrs H.K. Meller, Gwyneth Nott-Macaire and Mrs B.H.W. Parsons for heroically typing the original manuscripts. Photographs were taken by Vera Collingwood, Tiggy Ruthven, Hugh Meller and Brian Parsons. Archive photos, except where indicated, are from Brian Parsons’s collection. We are most grateful to all contributors.

Guidance from the librarians of London’s local history libraries, cemetery officials and local historians has been of immense help. New information has always been welcome and when the second edition appeared in 1984, Dr J.D. Pickles, Michael Robbins, Eric Robinson, Eric Smith and Peter Stickley supplied a great deal of new material. Similarly, for the third edition Jeffrey Hart, Julian Litten, Jo Mahoney, Jean Pateman, Bob Flanagan, Nicholas Reed, Michael Kerney and Gregory Drozdz were generous with information. For the fourth edition the following have been of particular assistance: David Solman, John Clarke, Robert Stephenson, Bob Flanagan, Bob Langford, Jean Pateman, Richard Quirk, John Gallehawk, Dr Ian Hussein, Dr Sharman Kadish, Charles Tucker, Richard Baldwin, Bob and Sheri Coates, Celia Smith and Ian Beeson. Particular thanks is extended to Nicholas Parsons. For the sixth edition thanks is expressed to: Patrick Hellicar, Mike Guilfoyle, Geoffrey Thurley, Prabha Thankaraj, Elaine at Ealing, Sheldon Goodman, Bob Flannagan, Oliver Wooller, Simon Donoghue, John Clarke, Tudor Allan, Sean Holloway, Dr Ian Dungavell, Robert Stephenson and Henry Vivian-Neal. Nevertheless, despite their help, mistakes or omissions may well have crept in and the authors would be grateful to readers who can advise of any inaccuracy or of useful additional information.

Hugh Meller and Brian Parsons, 2023

Introduction

The man, how wise, who, sick of gaudy scenes,

Is led by choice to take his favourite walk

Beneath Death’s gloomy, silent, cypress shades –

To read his monuments, to weigh his dust,

Visit his vaults, and dwell among the tombs.

Edward Young’s The Complaint: or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, & Immortality (1745)

‘The Angel of Death seems to be continuously hovering over London,’ began a short article by T.W. Wilkinson in 1906 entitled ‘Burying London’:

While he may not visit a secluded village once in a year, he spreads his wings over some one of the myriad houses in the mighty city every six minutes, and bears away an immortal soul. Ten times hourly does a mortal spark return to its Maker, leaving its earthly tabernacle to descend to the dust from which it sprang. And it is in consequence of the frequency of this natural separation – due, of course, to the size of the Metropolis, and not to an exceptionally high rate of mortality – that death is a great, ever-present fact in the world’s capital.

The author then warms to his thesis on the black trade, ‘Patent in nearly all business thoroughfares is the industrial side of life’s dissolution.’ He describes the West End firms that ‘can, on occasion, put ladies in black in twenty-four hours’; the Islington wreath makers ‘on the beaten track to the great gardens of sleep at Highgate and Finchley’; the Euston Road stonemasons’ shops ‘looking like a transplanted slip of cemetery’ and the heart of the ‘black trade’ in a huge establishment in the City, ‘where one might find a vast stock of wood, such as would set up in business two or three timber merchants, and coffin furniture by the ton’. Above all there was ‘the still more important Metropolitan business’ of the cemeteries, ‘burying proper’, as Mr Wilkinson bluntly described it.1

Wreath sellers in Islington (1906).

A funeral procession at St Mary’s RC, Kensal Green (c.1906).

From this description there can be no doubt that, in 1906, disposal of the dead in London was still an occasion of solemn ceremony culminating in a lavish funeral procession to the chosen cemetery, where a small fortune might be spent on a mausoleum. The cemetery companies themselves took immense pains to attract custom by providing a wide range of brick-lined graves, vaults and catacombs in carefully landscaped surroundings. Mrs Stone, writing in 1858, enthusiastically described a visit to a London cemetery. ‘I entered the cemetery; a more beautiful and luxurious garden it is impossible to conceive.’2 Her reaction would not have been unusual; casual visitors to cemeteries were expected in the nineteenth century. Arboreta were planted, guides written and epitaphs discussed.

Such sentiments waned during the twentieth century as attitudes to death became more reserved and appreciation of Victorian values and achievements were rejected and unrecognised. During this period cemeteries suffered from neglect and vandalism. The move towards cremation reduced income; the decline in expenditure on maintenance of the landscape was all too apparent while chapels and lodges were demolished. Only in the last twenty-five years has interest revived. The ‘Friends’ movement, the statutory listing of memorials and buildings, practical conservation work and publications have raised the profile of cemeteries.

Within the London Boroughs there are over 150 cemeteries and twenty-six crematoria. Their total acreage is approximately 3,500; about the size of one of London’s smaller boroughs. Some are vast – City of London Cemetery is the largest at 200 acres; a few cover less than an acre; most comprise twenty to forty. All cemeteries exhibit a variety of monuments, while most have at least one chapel and a lodge. Some were designed by distinguished architects. In West Norwood alone there are works by Thomas Allom, Edward Barry, William Burges, George Godwin, John Oldrid Scott, George Edmund Street and Sir William Tite. Most can boast the graves of figures of national distinction or at least of local importance. Patient research has revealed the tombs of over 700 famous men and women at Kensal Green. Together with other Victorian cemeteries, such as Brompton, Highgate and West Norwood, they provide a chapter in Victorian history as well as a galaxy of Victorian funerary art.

ONE

History

In the history of the cemetery movement, London played a major, but often insalubrious, role until well after the founding of its first garden cemetery at Kensal Green in 1832.1 Before that date the means of burial in London was either traditionally in the churchyard or in one of the recently founded private burial grounds and chapels. By the 1830s neither method was proving satisfactory. Some churchyards had been in use since the Middle Ages (St Paul’s had a continuous history of burial since the Romans), and they were now expected to cope with over 40,000 deaths annually, fuelled by cholera epidemics and a vast increase in the population. The City churchyards were, quite simply, filled to overflowing, a fact that did not escape the attention of many commentators who described their ghastly state in the most resounding Victorian prose.

The Builder was dramatic:

This London, the centre of civilisation, this condensation of wisdom and intelligence, this huge wedge and conglomerate of pride, buries – no it does not bury – but stores and piles up 50,000 of its dead to putrefy, to rot, to give out exhalations, to darken the air with vapours, faugh! It is loathsome to think of it; but it is strictly true, 50,000 desecrated corpses are every year stacked in some 150 limited pits of churchyards, burial grounds they are called, and one talks of decent and Christian burial …2

Dickens was sardonic:

Such strange churchyards hide in the City of London; churchyards sometimes so entirely pressed upon by houses, so small, so rank, so silent, so forgotten except by the few people who ever look down into them from their smokey windows. As I stand peeping in through the iron gate and rails, I can peel the rusty metal off, like bark from an old tree. The illegible tombstones are all lopsided, the gravemounds lost their shape in the rains of a hundred years ago, the Lombardy Poplar or Plane-Tree that was once a drysalter’s daughter and several common-councilmen, has withered like those worthies, and its departed leaves are dust beneath it. Contagion of slow ruin overhangs the place …3

He could also be horrific, as in Bleak House:

‘There!’ says Jo, pointing, ‘over yinder, among them pile of bones, and close to that there kitchin winder! They put him very nigh the top. They was obliged to stamp upon it to git it in. I could unkiver it for you with my broom, if the gate was open. That’s why they locks it I s’pose,’ giving it a shake. ‘It’s always locked. Look at the rat!’ cries Jo, excited. ‘Hi! Look! There he goes! Ho! Into the ground!’4

The anonymous author of a poem called ‘City Graves’ treated the subject with macabre humour:

I saw from out the earth peep forth

The white and glistening bones,

With jagged ends of coffin planks,

That e’en the worm disowns;

And once a smooth round skull rolled on,

Like a football, on the stones.5

Others argued scientifically, but no less sensationally. Dr Lyon Playfair reckoned that 2,572,580 cu. ft of gases were emitted annually from London’s graveyards – which would explain Dickens’ remark that ‘rot and mildew and dead citizens formed the uppermost scent’ in the City.6

George Walker, a surgeon with a strong stomach and dedicated to burial reform, zealously visited about fifty London graveyards and in 1839 published his findings in a book, Gatherings from Grave-Yards:

Particularly those of London, with a concise History of the Modes of Interment among different Nations, from the earliest Periods: and a Detail of dangerous and fatal Results produced by the unwise and revolting Custom of inhuming the Dead in the midst of the Living.

He described the London malpractices at length: drunken gravediggers, second-hand coffins, illegal exhumation, fatal ‘miasmas’ and the sort of perils that sometimes attended funerals:

In making a grave a body, partly decomposed, was dug up, and placed on the surface, at the side, slightly covered with earth; a mourner stepped upon it, the loosened skin peeled off, he slipped forward, and had nearly fallen into the grave.7

Walker was sternly critical of such appalling incidents, which prevailed more especially in the private burial grounds such as Victoria Park, which opened in 1845 and was closed around forty years later.8

An indignant history of these dubious enterprises was written by Mrs Basil Holmes in 1896. The overcrowded churchyards in the late eighteenth century prompted ‘some adventurers to start cemeteries as private speculations’, she wrote. By 1835 she estimated, ‘there must have been at least fourteen burial grounds in London carried on by private persons, besides some additional chapels with vaults under them conducted in the same way’. These speculations appear to have been managed by totally unscrupulous entrepreneurs who attracted business by undercutting the church’s burial charges. Often the officiants were not ministers of religion at all and Mrs Holmes quotes the case of a shoemaker living near such a chapel who conducted funerals dressed in a surplice. Gravediggers were ‘obliged to be half groggy to do it’ in burial grounds that in one case measured under an acre but had admitted 14,000 bodies in only twenty years, some buried only 2ft deep. Bodies were burnt and mutilated, quicklime was used to hasten decomposition, gravestones were moved ‘to give an impression of emptiness’. Bone stealing was common (they were ground down and sold as manure), coffin lead was also stolen and the timbers broken up for firewood. Mrs Holmes wrote:

Victoria Park: Following clearance in 1894 all that remains of the cemetery is the entrance, believed to be designed by Arthur Ashpitel. It is now called Meath Gardens.

No doubt practices as vile, as unwholesome and as irreverent were carried on in many of the churchyards, but the overcrowding of the private grounds is so associated with the idea of a private gloating over private gains that is more repulsive.9

The most notorious of these places was Enon Chapel, Clements Lane, a Dissenters’ chapel opened in 1823, which Walker first described in 1839:

Vast numbers of bodies have been placed here … soon after interments were made, a peculiarly long narrow black fly was observed to crawl out of many of the coffins; this insect, a product of the putrefaction of the bodies, was observed on the following season to be succeeded by another, which had the appearance of a common bug with wings. The children attending the Sunday School, held in this chapel in which these insects were seen to be crawling and flying, in vast numbers, during the summer months, called them ‘body bugs’.10

Between the coffins and the chapel floor there was nothing but the boards, not even tongued and grooved. The ‘effluvium’ in the chapel became so intolerable that no one attended the services, although the interments continued.11 It was reports such as these that