Nunhead Cemetery
View up The Avenue from the North Gate toward the Anglican Chapel
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| Details | |
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| Established | 1840 |
| Location | Nunhead, London |
| Country | England |
| Coordinates | 51°27′51″N 0°03′11″W / 51.46423°N 0.05304°W |
| Type | Public |
| Size | 52 acres (21 ha) |
| No. of graves | ? |
| No. of interments | ? |
| Website | Official website |
Nunhead Cemetery is one of the Magnificent Seven cemeteries in London, England. It is perhaps the least famous and celebrated of them. The cemetery is located in the Nunhead area of southern London and was originally known as All Saints' Cemetery. Nunhead Cemetery was consecrated in 1840 and opened by the London Necropolis Company. It is a Local Nature Reserve.
The Main Gate (North Gate) is located on Linden Grove (near the junction with Daniel's Road) and the South Gate is located on Limesford Road. The cemetery is in the London Borough of Southwark, SE15.
Consecrated in 1840, with an Anglican chapel designed by Thomas Little, it is one of the Magnificent Seven Victorian cemeteries established in a ring around what were then the outskirts of London. The first burial was of Charles Abbott, a 101-year-old Ipswich grocer; the last burial was of a volunteer soldier who became a canon of Lahore Cathedral. The first grave in Nunhead was dug in October 1840. The average annual number of burials there over the last ten years, has been 1685: 1350 in the consecrated, and 335 in the unconsecrated ground.
In the cemetery were reinterred remains removed, in 1867 and 1933, from the site of the demolished church in the City of London.
The cemetery contains examples of the imposing monuments to the most eminent citizens of the day, which contrast sharply with the small, simple headstones marking common or public burials. By the middle of the 20th century the cemetery was nearly full, and so was abandoned by the United Cemetery Company. With the ensuing neglect, the cemetery gradually changed from lawn to meadow and eventually to woodland. It is now a Local Nature Reserve and Site of Metropolitan Importance for wildlife, populated with songbirds, woodpeckers and tawny owls. A lack of care and cash surrendered the graves to the ravages of nature and vandalism, but in the early 1980s the Friends of Nunhead Cemetery were formed to renovate and protect the cemetery.
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Wikipedia