Richmond Cemetery
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War graves and the South African War Memorial in Richmond Cemetery
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| Established | 1786 |
| Location | Richmond, London, TW10 |
| Country | England |
| Coordinates | 51°27′19″N 0°17′18″W / 51.4553229°N 0.2884192°WCoordinates: 51°27′19″N 0°17′18″W / 51.4553229°N 0.2884192°W |
| Type | Active |
| Owned by | Richmond upon Thames London Borough Council |
| Size | 15 acres (6 hectares) |
| Website | Richmond Cemetery |
Richmond Cemetery is a cemetery on Lower Grove Road in Richmond in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, England. The cemetery opened in 1786 on a plot of land granted by an Act of Parliament the previous year. The cemetery has been expanded several times and now occupies a 15-acre (6-hectare) site which, prior to the expansion of London, was a rural area of Surrey. It is bounded to the east by Richmond Park and to the north by East Sheen Cemetery, with which it is now contiguous and whose chapel is used for services by both cemeteries. Richmond cemetery original contained two chapels—one Anglican and one Nonconformist—both built in the Gothic revival style, but both are now privately owned and the Nonconformist chapel today falls outside the cemetery walls after a redrawing of its boundaries.
Many prominent people are buried in the cemetery, as are 39 soldiers who died at the South African Hospital in Richmond Park during the First World War and many ex-servicemen from the nearby Royal Star and Garter Home. These residents are commemorated by the Bromhead Memorial, which lists the names of those who are not commemorated elsewhere, while the South African soldiers are commemorated by a cenotaph designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, derived from his design of the Cenotaph on Whitehall in central London. The war graves and the cenotaph are the responsibility of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
The cemetery was founded following the Richmond: Poor Relief, etc. Act 1785 (25 Geo.3 c.41), which granted Pesthouse Common, formerly owned by King George III, to Richmond vestry. A plot of 1.5 acres (0.6 hectares) was enclosed for a burial ground; a workhouse was also provided. The site was originally a simple square plot divided into four by footpaths; between 1865 and 1879, the cemetery expanded and subsumed the land between the original site and the workhouse, which was laid out in a grid format, and by 1894 the cemetery had further expanded onto a plot of land to the north, also in a grid layout. The cemetery now occupies an area of 15 acres (6 hectares), ten times its original size. In 1873 the local vicar built a wall to divide the consecrated ground (for Church of England devotees) from the unconsecrated ground (for Nonconformists and non-believers), but the move met with consternation in the local community and the wall was found torn down one morning. The vicar offered a reward for information as to the identities of the culprits but was apparently unsuccessful. There was never any attempt to rebuild the wall.
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