Background
Competiton for burial space in London reached breaking point in the early nineteenth century, as the population had more than doubled in just half a century. Bodies went unburied and graveyards were overfilled - in some cases, single graves contained three, even four layers of burial, the uppermost being so shallow the graveyards were awash with noxious gases, spreading yet more disease and death.
A solution was found in the garden cemeteries, private burial land independent of the churches. These cemeteries soon became a way for the emergent middle class to demonstrate their wealth and good taste, and so more and more money was poured into ostentatious monuments and park landscaping, making these cemeteries as much pleasure destinations for the living as they were final destinations for the dead.
In 1832, the government authorised the establishment of seven private cemeteries, in a ring around outer London. These Big Seven* are:
- Kensal Green (1832)
- West Norwood (1837)
- Highgate Cemetery (1839)
- Nunhead (1840)
- Brompton (1840)
- Abney Park (1840)
- Tower Hamlets (1841)
Although these were conceived as the homes of eternal monuments to the dead, just 160 years later many of the people buried here have been well forgotten, their elaborate tombstones reduced to architecturally pleasing rubble, the carefully pruned bushes overgrown into dense copse. Yeah, so they're kinda nice.
Tong Trips to the Big Seven
1. Brompton - Tuesday 3 August 2004
One afternoon Ferg, spim and I filled a few plastic bags with cheeses, bread and cider and took a bus from High Holborn to the Bromp, the first cemetery in our epic adventure through the cemeteries of London.
The cemetery is incredibly well maintained, the grass neatly manicured and the stones all upright and well scrubbed. In fact, it was all so well-maintained it felt slightly wrong to settle among the stones and get drunk - for all their antiquity, it felt like the bodies were still fresh in the ground. We wandered for a while seeking a more secluded spot, whilst also avoiding stumbling into those fully secluded spots where young men go to find the company of other young men.
The solution was the children's cemetery, a half acre of lawn speckled by minature gravestones. In the company of Little Phil and Our Poppet we sheltered beneath a beech tree from the thunderstorm, enjoying our picnic and listening to CDs. We later discovered it was the same thunderstorm that left the London transport system in tatters and killed several children.
Despite the rain, there was plenty of people watching: elderly widows tottering to visit their husband's graves were as common as the men in grey macs seeking some hot man action. We were beside a large cloistered monument, and little sex-starved men would peep curiously out of the arches at random times, like one of those house-shaped weathervanes. We got drunk, pissed in the bushes, and left.
- ...photos: TongFunPhotos/StenNightFun
- ...see also: Tong Haunts/The Bromp
2. Nunhead - Sunday 6 February 2005
Spim and I bought a fine selection of cider, cheeses and pie and headed down to Nunhead cemetery - near Peckham - for a Sunday picnic. What struck us immediately was how much more rural and overgrown Nunhead is compared to the Bromp. No carefully mowed lawns and delicately pruned bushes here, entire swathes of the 58 acres have been lost to the undergrowth, the odd headstone peeking through the blackberry bushes the only indication this isn't some woodland outside of the city.
After a brief promenade from the main gate to the bombed-out chapel - and some idle speculation as to which monument housed my aunt's ancestors - we took a sharp detour up a muddy slope and then at each turn sought a path more overgrown and rural than the last. At one point we stumbled across a bench staring out from the hill across the city, framing St Paul's cathedral between two clumps of trees. It was kinda pretty, I guess.
We ate our picnic on a log next to the poor-man's graves - tiny little doorstops of stones, crammed together anonymously and reminiscent of a pet cemetery - and soaked up the atmosphere: a light breeze in the leafless trees, circling crows calling to each other up above.
Nunhead attacts a different class to the Bromp: no men cottaging for business here. One young man wandered around slowly, picking up stray fingerbones. A drunkard stumbled along the path with his mangey dog, improbably bellowing 'Hello-hi' in a deep grizzled voice. Several joggers made their way round it too, perhaps spurred on by the constant reminders of their own mortality, but only one such athlete was fooolish enought to go round three times. Children played in the bushes, an excellent world for hide-and-seek, so long as their weak infant bodies are not crushed beneath falling masonry.
All in all, very splendid. We drained our bottles of cider, polished off the goats cheese, and headed off to find a lavatory.
- Dedicated to George Handley Fabb, winner of the best dead person's name competition for Nunhead. He'll be meeting Little Phil and Our Poppet in the finals.
*NB: The BBC website calls these the "Magnificent Seven", however Tongs prefer the simpler "Big Seven", to avoid incurring the undead wrath of Yul Brynner.
Feedback
Rehan writes to say, "Hi, I happened to stukble across your website and would like to thank you for your reviews of Brompton and Nunhead. You should visit some fo the others as well particularly, Kensal green and Highgate.I'm currently writing a book on the minor Victorian poets buried in the Big Seven!" - [Visit Rehan at My Space!]