Abney Park Cemetery
Encyclopedia
Abney Park in Stoke Newington
, in the London Borough of Hackney
, is a historic parkland originally laid out in the early 18th century by Lady Mary Abney
and Dr. Isaac Watts
, and the neighbouring Hartopp family. In 1840 it became a non-denominational garden cemetery
, semi-public park arboretum
, and educational institute, which was widely celebrated as an example of its time. Abney Park, or Abney Park Cemetery, is one of the Magnificent Seven
London cemeteries. It is a Local Nature Reserve
.
. The main gate is at the junction of Stoke Newington High Street and Rectory Road. It is in the London Borough of Hackney
. There is also a small gate on Stoke Newington Church Street
.
Abney Park, the London Congregationalists'
pioneering non-denominational place of rest that reflected new world burial ideas at Mount Auburn
in Massachusetts, opened as a model garden cemetery in 1840. Its approach was based on the Congregationalists'
role in the London Missionary Society
, whose 'fundamental principle' was, likewise, to develop a wholly non-denominational exemplar.
At first there were many links between Abney Park Cemetery and the LMS but this nonconformist (and in particular Congregationalist) period came to a close in the early 1880s when a strictly commercial general cemetery company was formed and the land at Abney Park
was made over to the new enterprise. Though the park had not been formalised in 1840 as a cemetery through Act of Parliament or consecration, and Church faculty law never applied - burial ground use, had, by the 1880s, already come to predominate over the wider landscape, access and educational objects of its founders.
The founders' financial and legal model had unfortunately not been as radical as their objects had required. Although the original directors also referred to themselves as trustees, having established a trust deed under which they sought to preserve the park in perpetuity, they let the park for operational purposes to the same individuals as a conventional Joint Stock Company (in common with most private cemeteries of the period), rather than perhaps breaking the mould as a provident society. The weakness of the model lay in the detail however, but this was not evident for thirty years. An eventual successful prosecution by the Crown, ruled that despite their unusual business model and the way in which plots were seemingly sold as freehold land, the legal arrangements were actually inadequate to achieve a different status from any other commercial cemetery, either for the company or the registered keepers of plots. In consequence, company income could not be held in trust for the park, but was to be treated as for any other commercial profit-making company and taxed accordingly.
Eventually sold on the open market to a wholly commercially-minded general cemetery company in the 1880s, established with a similar name, three new cemeteries were founded in London's suburbs or nearby countryside. From then onwards standardised park-like landscaping principles came to be applied at Abney Park, replacing much of the unique arboretum
planting. Air pollution also took its toll, affecting the conifer walks. After the First World War, path infill began to be practiced; a situation that became severe in the 1950s and was continued into the 1970s, when the commercial cemetery company went into liquidation.
In 1978, apart from one forecourt building, the park passed to the local council as a burial ground and open space subject to the Local Authorities Cemeteries Order of 1977. For the next twenty-one years, there being only a small number of residual burial and monuments rights, the Council worked with local groups and relatives to accommodate these rights, and exercise discretion to allow occasional courtesy burials, where families had previously held deeds from the cemetery company; but by and large nature was allowed to take its course.
Abney Park became scheduled in 2009 as one of Britain's historic park and garden at risk from neglect and decay. Although the level of malicious damage is kept low by the conspicuous presence of staff and volunteers of the Abney Park Trust when maintaining the park; by frequent arts and environmental events promoted by the Trust; and by community safety initiatives involving the police and their community support officers; nevertheless over time it has taken its toll, leading to the current 'at risk' designation. The roof slates and roof flashings of the Abney Park Chapel have been damaged by unauthorised climbing and theft at times when the park was left unsupervised and unlocked overnight, and this has resulted in water seepage into the chapel walls which is now causing serious problems to the whole building. Similarly, from time to time, some sections of boundary wall become too weak due to people climbing over them, and decay has set in. However these matters could be put right and the park is a popular place to visit, with a range of educational, training and cultural events and an annual summer open day. It is a designated Local Nature Reserve and Conservation Area. Apart from the South Lodge extension on the forecourt, Abney Park's freehold is owned by the London Borough of Hackney
. The park is situated near Stoke Newington High Street, London N16, and it is leased to the Abney Park Trust. It occupies 32 acres (129,000 m²), which includes a nature reserve, a classroom, a visitor's centre and a central chapel which is disused. The park is normally opened by the Trust for free public access on weekdays and weekends from about 9.30 am to 5 pm, and for access or events agreed with the Trust at all other times.
' parkland cemeteries created in the early Victorian period, albeit set out in an entirely different way to the others and with somewhat wider purposes, Abney Park features an entrance designed by William Hosking
FSA in collaboration with Joseph Bonomi the Younger
and the cemetery's founder George Collison II
. This frontage was built by John Jay
in the then increasingly popular 'Egyptian Revival' style, with hieroglyphics signifying the 'Abode of the Mortal Part of Man': a venture too far into the architecture of the African continent for Augustus Pugin
who pilloried the idea, hoping no-one would repeat such a radical departure from 'good' Christian gothic design (see illustration for Grounds of a Quaker School). A similar criticism had previously been made when the first Egyptian-style entrance to a western cemetery had been constructed at Mount Auburn Cemetery in the 1830s, on which Abney Park Cemetery was partially modelled. By contrast, figures who appreciated the composition, complimented William Hosking and Joseph Bonomi on their scholarly frontage design; including an arbiter of design taste, John Loudon
, who described it as a judicious combination of two lodges with gates between'.
Bracing the controversy, Abney Park could claim to be the earliest complete design for a permanent 'Egyptian Revival' entranceway at a cemetery anywhere in the world. The gateway at Mount Auburn Cemetery from which it took its inspiration, was at that time still a temporary structure, being made of dusted wood and sand; its permanent 'Egyptian Revival' design was not built until two years after Abney Park's design opened. In England there were already some examples of the use of 'Egyptian Revival' architecture on a small-scale, including one example of a small 'Egyptian Revival' gate installed at a cemetery for Nonconformists near Sheffield in 1836. However, Abney Park Cemetery became the first to employ the style for cemetery buildings, and also the first to introduce it for a complete entrance design.
At Abney Park the use of motifs not associated with contemporary faith served a profound purpose, since it was consciously opened as the first wholly nondenominational garden cemetery in Europe. True, other garden cemeteries sometimes used the term loosely, meaning only that they had laid out more than one denominational area or built more than one chapel. Abney Park Cemetery was the first to be laid out with 'no invidious dividing lines' separating the burial areas of one faith or religious group from any other, and even its one chapel, the Abney Park Chapel
, a feast of Puritan or northern European brick gothic yet with ample stone dressings and a little neoclassical design woven into its early Dissenting Gothic
design style, had but one central chamber for the common use of all, and but one entrance. As such it was the first nondenominational cemetery chapel in Europe. William Hosking, in being handed the task of achieving this vision, became the first architect to design a nondenominational cemetery chapel in Europe. Underpinning this was a unique legal basis in comparison with the other garden cemeteries of its period; Abney Park was not set aside solely for cemetery use by Act of Parliament, and was not formally consecrated as burial land. Perhaps more so than any other it was entitled to be considered as a park as well as a cemetery.
Today it is accommodating this wide role again; burial rights ceased when the private company closed in 1978, enabling the park to now facilitate a wide range of projects in the arts, education, nature conservation and walking/recreation, besides offering new memorial trees and benches where ashes are scattered, and the occasional discretionary or courtesy burial.
Abney Park was unique in being the first arboretum to be combined with a cemetery in Europe; offering an educational attraction that was originally set in a landscape of fields and woods, some distance from the built-up boundary of London. Its 2,500 trees and shrubs were all labelled, and arranged around the perimeter alphabetically, from A for Acer (maple
trees) to Z for Zanthoxylum (American toothache trees).
The emphasis on an educational landscape, as opposed to a purely aesthetic, visually attractive picturesque, drew partly on a simplified version of John Loudon's
'Gardenesque' concept, and applied something akin to this, but with a unique alphabetical approach, and no structural mounding, to a picturesque cemetery design. It was much admired by John Loudon, who described Abney Park Cemetery as 'the most highly ornamented cemetery in the vicinity of London', albeit that he favoured a more formal and classical approach to garden cemetery design as a general rule and, in 1843 developed design principles for such an approach.
At the Stoke Newington cemetery the botanical planting was carefully sited since the design sought to do as little as possible to change the existing picturesque parkland. This careful approach drew on that used at Mount Auburn Cemetery
near Boston
where Dearborn had emphasised the compatibility of horticulture and even an experimental garden with a cemetery, leading to the opening of a cemetery supported by the Massachusetts Horticultural Society; one that succeeded in establishing a picturesque landscape coupled with botanical garden specimens and an adjoining scientific garden. There were important differences however; the New England cemetery had benefited from a more sylvan setting than that of Abney Park, and a much larger estate. Nonetheless, the ties were evident. The founding directors of the Abney Park project were all Congregationalists
, who together with other nonconformists
had strong links with their brethren in the new world, to where they had emigrated in search of religious freedom. George Collison, Abney Park Cemetery's company secretary, and the key force behind its radical design, recorded his visit to, and impressions of, Mount Auburn Cemetery, in a book published to coincide with the opening of the Stoke Newington cemetery. It also contains a complete list of all the arboretum species and varieties planted at Abney Park.
The concept of the arboretum -and indeed also a rosarium - was inspired by George Loddiges
FLS FZS, a local Hackney nurseryman who became a small shareholder in the cemetery company and was appointed to lead its landscape design, planting and educational labelling, to complement William Hosking
's layout and building and engineering (drainage) scheme. The pair worked closely as a design team under the guiding influence of the third designer George Collison, who represented the client company both as its solicitor and principal learned visionary. Loddiges' earlier experience in designing an a to z arboretum at his Mare Street nursery, and possession of one of the largest ranges of trees and shrubs then grown for sale in Britain, ensured success.
The overall effect was to establish Abney Park as the most impressively landscaped garden cemetery of its period. However regrettably, Loddiges Nursery closed in the early 1850s and thereafter maintenance of the trees and shrubs and of their botanical labels, was impaired. Today Loddiges' work is of unparalleled significance to landscape design, being recognised as of European importance. Abney Park was the first London cemetery to be invited to join the Association of Significant Cemeteries in Europe (ASCE) and it is the only surviving example of an English landscape designed by George Loddiges FLS FZS.
Such an elaborate planting scheme for a park cemetery may also be a reflection of the symbolic importance the founding directors attached to the land that formed Abney Park Cemetery. As nonconformists, who treasured the independence of their religious beliefs—and therefore practised Christianity outside of the established Church of England
—they held the land itself to be of immense significance, for it had previously been two neighbouring and inter-related 18th-century parkland estates, the grounds of Abney House and Fleetwood House, where the non-conformist Doctor of Divinity, educationalist and poet Dr. Isaac Watts
lived and taught, and indeed wrote several of his popular books and hymns.
Due to these religious associations, Abney Park Cemetery rapidly became the most attractive Victorian resting place for nonconformist or dissenting ministers and educationalists, principally those from a Protestant dissenting tradition. Indeed it stands today as the most important burial place in the UK of 19th-century Congregational
, Baptist
, Methodist and Salvation Army
ministers and educationalists, including Christopher Newman Hall
and many others, some of whom are mentioned below. Whereas Bunhill Fields
was described by the poet Southey as the Campo Santo (saints' abode) of the Dissenters
in respect of its late 17th century and 18th century burials, Abney Park took on the mantle during the Victorian period in the writings of E. Paxton Hood for the Religious Tract Society
.
Though it primarily attracted Congregational, Methodist and Salvation Army nonconformists, rather than certain other nonconformists such as Quakers, or non-Protestant nonconformists such as Catholics or Jewish people, Abney Park Cemetery more than any other nineteenth century cemetery was open to the burial of all regardless of their religious convictions or leanings. Whilst its founding directors were all Congregationalists and they were concerned to find a place for such burials, they expressly established the Stoke Newington cemetery as the first fully nondenominational cemetery in Europe (where anyone could be buried anywhere). Selection of a site with historical associations with Dr Isaac Watts served this purpose well, for he had been honoured in death with a bust in the Anglican Westminster Abbey
to complement his burial at the Independent's Bunhill Fields. Subsequently his hymns and scholarly works had become widely used and referred to by many denominations, such that in the nineteenth century the Rev. John Stroughton could write: "Dr. Watts was as far removed from sectarianism as a man could be". Abney Park Chapel
, sometimes referred to informally as Dr Watts' Chapel, became its spiritual and landscape focal point. It sits in the heart of the cemetery; its axial walk to Church Street
, called Dr Watts' Walk, was chosen in 1845 as the most appropriate site in London for a public statue to the great man, sculpted by Edward Hodges Baily
, RA
FRS
.
and Hackney's first MP. In fact, this part of north London, particularly Newington Green
, had a long history of innovative education for boys and young men, known as dissenting academies
.
Abney House was the first premises in England to be used exclusively as a Wesleyan
training college, from circa 1838. This followed use of temporary, shared facilities in Hackney, and prior to the building of their own spacious colleges and grounds, one in the north of England, and a second at Richmond
Hill, to which the college at Abney Park moved in 1843. Abney House was then demolished. The governorship of the seminary was held by Rev. John Farrar, Secretary of the Methodist Conference on fourteen occasions and twice its elected President.
Next to Abney House on Church Street was Fleetwood House, used as the base for Newington Academy for Girls
, which was founded in 1824 by, among others, the Quaker scientist and abolitionist William Allen and run in a most enlightened and imaginative way by Susanna Corder, who later emigrated for a while to Boston and emerged as a talented biographer. It lost exclusive use of attractive grounds in the eastern part of Abney Park on formation of the cemetery, leaving only the school house and a small garden for the private use of the students. However, they were welcome to use the new cemetery's educational arboretum and this, along with Abney Park as a whole, was rarely shared with many others in the early years of the new cemetery, except at weekends. The school's innovative approach included transport arrangements; it commissioned the first school bus
in the world.
Most noticeably, William
and Catherine Booth
, founders of The Salvation Army
, are buried in a prominent location close to Church Street and next to their son Bramwell Booth
and various SA commissioners, including Elijah Cadman
, Frederick Booth-Tucker
, George Scott Railton
, the Army's first Commissioner, Theodore Kitching
and T. Henry Howard
, the Chief of the Staff of The Salvation Army
.
Earlier in the 19th century, one of the hottest issues for political and social reform in Stoke Newington society was the Abolition of Slavery
. Indeed, William Wilberforce
himself planned to be buried at St Mary's Church in Stoke Newington
with his sister, his will being overturned on his death since parliament considered a state funeral at Westminster Abbey
more fitting. Wilberforce's son-in-law, the abolitionist lawyer James Stephen was also a frequent visitor to Stoke Newington
, father living at the Fleetwood Summerhouse adjacent to Abney Park. Dr Thomas Binney
, the 'Archbishop of Non-conformity' has a portrait in the National Portrait Gallery that shows him at the Anti-Slavery Society Convention (with Josiah Conder
); Thomas Binney is buried close to the Church Street entrance in Abney Park Cemetery. Christopher Newman Hall
who was influential on the side of slavery emancipation in the American Civil War
is also buried here with his father, and the Rev. James Sherman
who wrote the introduction to the book Uncle Tom's Cabin which greatly influenced abolition in America. The novel was partly based on Josiah Henson
, whose escape to freedom in Britain was assisted by the philanthropist Samuel Morley
who is buried at Abney Park Cemetery, and later contributed an introductory note to Josiah Henson's
own influential autobiography. The Rev. Joseph Ketley
a Congregational
missionary and abolitionist in Demerara
is also interred here, as is Rev. Dr John Morison
, patron of the escaped slave and influential African-American autobiographer Moses Roper
.
Of special importance is Olaudah Equiano
's daughter Joanna Vassa
, her father being a leading African slavery emancipator of the period. Jamaican emancipation is represented directly by the Rev. Samuel Oughton
and the Rev. Thomas Burchell
who only narrowly escaped death at the hands of the planters; and their underlying Baptist support by Nathaniel Rogers M.D. A deacon at the Burchell Baptist church, the African Samuel Sharpe
, is now a Jamaican national hero. Aaron Buzacott, the second Secretary of Anti-Slavery International
, originally known as the Anti-Slavery Society
is buried here. At Abney Park Cemetery there are also some of the early settlers in Britain from the four corners of the world, such as the African, Thomas Caulker
, the son of the King of Bompey (now Sierra Leone) who signed an anti-slavery agreement that became included in a British Act of Parliament in the 1850s; and Leota, a native of the Samoa Islands
whose life in London was due to the work of the London Missionary Society
who sought to build schools and bring scripture to the inhabitants of the South Seas. Abney Park is one of the main burial places of nineteenth century missionaries; here, for example is the burial place of William Ellis
, John Williams'
wife and son, Dr Medhurst
, and Edward Stallybrass. Also Sarah Buzacott, the wife of Aaron Buzacott the elder
, who was a teacher at the London Missionary Society
college at Rarotonga
in the South Seas. Many nonconformist divines are also buried here, for example Dr Alexander Fletcher, 'The Children's Friend'.
The evangelist Emily Gosse
, whose life of faith and works is still invigorating Christians today, but whose puritan beliefs were rather austere for her son, the literary genius Edmund Gosse
, is buried in a simple grave near Dr Watts' Mound.
Close to Church Street is the burial of one of the cemetery's early Director and Trustees, one of the first two Members of Parliament for Hackney
Sir Charles Reed FSA
. Close by lies his father Dr Andrew Reed (1788-1862), a student of Rev. George Collison
and founder of the London Orphan Asylum. In 1834, along with the Rev. J. Matheson. Andrew Reed was sent to the Congregational Churches of America by the Congregational Union of England and Wales as a deputation in order to promote peace and friendship between the two communities. He spent six months in America and during his stay there Yale University conferred upon him an honorary Doctorate of Divinity. This strengthened the Congregationalists' transatlantic links ensuring the Rev George Collison's son a welcome when he visited to gain ideas for Abney Park cemetery's design from Mount Auburn Cemetery.
Here too is the Welsh MP Henry Richard
, a mid C19th Secretary of the Peace Society
, instrumental in encouraging the first university in Wales at Aberystwyth along with its founder Sir Hugh Owen, whose own memorial is to the east of the Abney Park Cedar Circle. The Peace Society is well represented at Abney Park; two of its other C19th Secretaries, Rev. Nun Morgan Harry and Rev. John Jefferson are also buried here. Rajendra Chandra Chandra, Professor of Calcutta Medical College and physician, is also buried here with his wife.
Pioneering fire fighter James Braidwood
, credited with forming the first municipal fire brigade; Edward Calvert, engraver and painter and novelist Isabella Banks
, newspaper editor and playwright George Linnaeus Banks
; and the African-Jamaican Baptist missionary Rev. Joseph Jackson Fuller
, are also buried in the Park. So too are Rev William Brock D.D.
, John Hoppus D.D.
of University College London, and John Harris D.D.
and Robert Halley
of New College London
.
Amongst the Theatre and Music Hall performers resting at Abney Park are George Leybourne
, Nelly Power
, Albert Chevalier
, G. W. Hunt, Herbert Campbell, Dan Crawley, Walter Laburnum and Fred Albert. These graves are cared for by the theatre charity The Music Hall Guild of Great Britain and America
.
Other burials at the cemetery include the Chartist
leader and publisher James "Bronterre" O'Brien, whose life and work is celebrated at the cemetery each year, especially by the Irish
community and those in the Labour Movement
; Dr John Pye Smith, the first dissenter to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society
; Mary Hays
the feminist writer, Eric Walrond
, the African-American Harlem Renaissance
writer, and Thomas William Robertson
the dramatic author. John O'Connor Power (1846-1919), Irish Member of Parliament for Mayo, orator, barrister, radical journalist and author of 'The Making of an Orator' is buried here with his wife's family.
In a different way, Susanna Bostock is remembered, largely due to the dominance of her life-sized marble lion alongside a path close to the chapel. Along with the Wombwells, the Bostocks were mainly responsible for bringing Asian and African animals to the attention of the Victorian public. For part of the year giraffes lived close to the cemetery at a small farm in Yoakley Road.
Abney Park contains memorials to three hundred and seventy-one servicemen from the local borough of Stoke Newington who sacrificed their lives in World War I
and Second World War
. Unusually, Stoke Newington has two 'Cross of Sacrifice' monuments constructed shortly after the end of WW1 based on Blomfield's
famous design: one on the lawn in front of St. Mary's Church on Church Street, and one in front of the south-facing facade of Abney Park Chapel
in the cemetery. The names associated with the first cross are displayed a short distance away (inside the foyer of the public library on Church Street) whilst the names of those associated with the second cross (those who are interred in the cemetery) are recorded on a north-facing wall added to the platform on which it stands unless burials are otherwise individually marked. Near the cemetery cross, the names of second world war servicemen who lost their lives and have been buried in the cemetery without separate commemoration, have also been displayed.
The cemetery's 'Cross of Sacrifice' serves as a landmark, but though rising on a ragstone platform of contrasting Portland Stone, it cannot be viewed on the approach from Church Street since the cemetery company chose to infill Dr Watts' axial walk at the time the war memorial was erected, so they designed the platform screen wall to prevent the cross from being seen from the south. The Trust hopes to change this if a redesign can be agreed, so as to display the cross to be seen from more directions and as a vantage point and focal point overlooking both directions of the original axis from the chapel spire and its ogee arch along Dr Watts' Walk, and on to Abney House gate; the axis that commemorates the life of the Rev. Dr Isaac Watts. Slightly off this exact axial alignment, is the small Blitz
memorial that records civilian deaths, closer to the south entrance (picture right).
Though it suffered extensive property damage in the war, Stoke Newington's death toll was relatively low by the standards of some other Hackney districts like Shoreditch
, and it would have been lower still, were it not for one incident on 13 October 1940, when a German bomb made a direct hit on a crowded shelter at Coronation Avenue, just off the high street. Most people in the shelter were killed, and as the illustration shows, the list of the dead from this one incident takes up nearly three of the four panels on the memorial. Many of the dead were Jewish and some were refugees from the Nazis.
The war has still not totally loosened its grip on the area. Of two known unexploded bombs (UXBs) remaining in Stoke Newington, one is located somewhere in Abney Park.
As may have been implied already, Abney Park Cemetery was the only garden cemetery of its era to be influenced by New World cemetery design ideas due to the strong links between its founders and New England; in particular Boston. The Stoke Newington cemetery reflects the design style adopted for Mount Auburn, for example in its use of an Egyptian Revival entrance and arboretum. However, though its 'model' lay in the New World, it drew on different romantic landscape associations. Whereas Mount Auburn Cemetery celebrated the 'Sweet Auburn' of poetry, in particular the nature and woodland associated with the Auburn village area, it was the 'romance' of religious and historical associations that primarily attracted the founders of London's first nondenominational garden cemetery, to Lady Mary Abney's estate which had served as an inspiration to the celebrated Isaac Watts. Nonetheless, on its opening, Abney Park was by far the most sylvan of all garden cemeteries in Britain; its many stately trees imbued the landscape with a uniquely well-timbered inheritance or 'green cloak', and plans were put in train to encourage this further with collections of trees arranged along, and set back from, path edges. Whereas the cemetery at Mount Auburn had been blessed with a natural woodland setting, well suited to its founders' ethos of creating an Elysian paradise, Abney Park would take some time to more closely reflect its predominantly woodland style of cemetery design and a more transcendental view of nature as proposed by Emerson, and Thoreau in New England
.
Slowly, however, time has healed this difference and the landscape at Abney Park has grown closer to its New World cousin. Mature trees and woodland now adorn Abney Park, completing its transformation into a woodland cemetery. This has been so profound a change that by the early 1990s the cemetery was acknowledged to be the largest woodland ecosystem in North London so close to the centre of the City of London, and became designated as the first statutory Local Nature Reserve
in the London Borough of Hackney.
Under careful management the woodland is slowly becoming enriched through natural regeneration. The northern areas are slowly returning to native oaks with a hornbeam and hawthorn understory, and a woodland ground flora that includes Wood False Brome grass and Wood Spurge; the whole being interspersed with naturalising exotic thorns and service trees
to add a cross-cultural dimension. Meanwhile, the sandy brickearth soils that extend from Church Street along Dr Watts' Walk to the chapel lawns, the sole surviving heathland in Hackney, are returning to a lighter structure based on Silver Birch woodland and healthy species such as bracken fern. Today, a range of woodland birds, mammals and butterflies are supported; the grounds forming one of north London's largest breeding sites so close to the City for some very attractive species such as the Speckled Wood
butterfly.
Nature changes gradually however, and the ecology will need active habitat management if these semi-natural sylvan qualities are to be preserved and enhanced, and to ensure that the naturalising exotic arboretum trees (such as Various-leaved Hawthorn and Service Tree of Fontainebleau
) and plans for the replacement of Loddiges
' perimeter A to Z arboretum, contribute their valuable educational and botanical interest to parts of the grounds.
There is a beautiful cemetery in Stoke Newington, and it was given to the inhabitants in memory of Lady Abney
, who was a sincere friend to Dr. Watts. There is in it a pretty little church, where funeral services are performed by all denominations of Christians.
Lady Abney was very liberal in her religious views, and the cemetery is, with its church, open to all alike, and though its grounds were never consecrated, yet many rigid churchmen have been buried in it. There is no quieter burial spot within a dozen miles of London in any direction, and there are cedars of Lebanon in it, wide lawns, and beautiful flowers.
There is an old clergyman in the church, who is always ready to officiate for a small fee on funeral occasions. He is over eighty years old, his hair is like the snow, and he is a fit companion to such a solemn place.
One shining evening, with a female friend we visited the cemetery, and stopped in the little [largely] Gothic chapel
to talk with the venerable clergyman. The tears actually sprung over his eyelids when we said that we came from America.
The old man asked a thousand questions about the wonderful far land of liberty in the west, which we were glad to answer. Almost every family among the poor respectable classes in England, has some member, or relation in America.
. It is one of the five cemeteries located north of the river Thames.
Buses: 73 (the recommended route from the West End), 67, 76, 106, 243, 276
On foot: The Capital Ring
, a Strategic Walking Route from/to Highgate and Hackney Wick.
On bicycle: Parking available at Church Street entrance
Disabled access & facilities: Main entrance
Car Club (car-sharing): 'Streetcar' at Wilmer Place car park off Church Street
Stoke Newington
Stoke Newington is a district in the London Borough of Hackney. It is north-east of Charing Cross.-Boundaries:In modern terms, Stoke Newington can be roughly defined by the N16 postcode area . Its southern boundary with Dalston is quite ill-defined too...
, in the London Borough of Hackney
London Borough of Hackney
The London Borough of Hackney is a London borough of North/North East London, and forms part of inner London. The local authority is Hackney London Borough Council....
, is a historic parkland originally laid out in the early 18th century by Lady Mary Abney
Lady Mary Abney
Mary, Lady Abney inherited the Manor of Stoke Newington in the early 18th century, which lies about five miles north of St Paul's Cathedral in the City of London...
and Dr. Isaac Watts
Isaac Watts
Isaac Watts was an English hymnwriter, theologian and logician. A prolific and popular hymnwriter, he was recognised as the "Father of English Hymnody", credited with some 750 hymns...
, and the neighbouring Hartopp family. In 1840 it became a non-denominational garden cemetery
Cemetery
A cemetery is a place in which dead bodies and cremated remains are buried. The term "cemetery" implies that the land is specifically designated as a burying ground. Cemeteries in the Western world are where the final ceremonies of death are observed...
, semi-public park arboretum
Arboretum
An arboretum in a narrow sense is a collection of trees only. Related collections include a fruticetum , and a viticetum, a collection of vines. More commonly, today, an arboretum is a botanical garden containing living collections of woody plants intended at least partly for scientific study...
, and educational institute, which was widely celebrated as an example of its time. Abney Park, or Abney Park Cemetery, is one of the Magnificent Seven
Magnificent Seven, London
The "Magnificent Seven" is an informal term applied to seven large cemeteries in London. They were established in the 19th century to alleviate overcrowding in existing parish burial grounds.-Background:...
London cemeteries. It is a Local Nature Reserve
Local Nature Reserve
Local nature reserve or LNR is a designation for nature reserves in the United Kingdom. The designation has its origin in the recommendations of the Wild Life Conservation Special Committee which established the framework for nature conservation in the United Kingdom and suggested a national suite...
.
Location
The official address of Abney Park is Stoke Newington High Street, N16N postcode area
The N postcode area, also known as the London N postcode area, is the part of the London post town covering part of North London, England....
. The main gate is at the junction of Stoke Newington High Street and Rectory Road. It is in the London Borough of Hackney
London Borough of Hackney
The London Borough of Hackney is a London borough of North/North East London, and forms part of inner London. The local authority is Hackney London Borough Council....
. There is also a small gate on Stoke Newington Church Street
Stoke Newington Church Street
Stoke Newington Church Street is a road in north London of the borough of Hackney. The road links Green Lanes in the west to Stoke Newington High Street , in the east...
.
Past and present
Congregational church
Congregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing Congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs....
pioneering non-denominational place of rest that reflected new world burial ideas at Mount Auburn
Mount Auburn Cemetery
Mount Auburn Cemetery was founded in 1831 as "America's first garden cemetery", or the first "rural cemetery", with classical monuments set in a rolling landscaped terrain...
in Massachusetts, opened as a model garden cemetery in 1840. Its approach was based on the Congregationalists'
Congregational church
Congregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing Congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs....
role in the London Missionary Society
London Missionary Society
The London Missionary Society was a non-denominational missionary society formed in England in 1795 by evangelical Anglicans and Nonconformists, largely Congregationalist in outlook, with missions in the islands of the South Pacific and Africa...
, whose 'fundamental principle' was, likewise, to develop a wholly non-denominational exemplar.
At first there were many links between Abney Park Cemetery and the LMS but this nonconformist (and in particular Congregationalist) period came to a close in the early 1880s when a strictly commercial general cemetery company was formed and the land at Abney Park
Abney Park
The historic grounds of Abney Park are situated in Stoke Newington, London, England. It is a 13ha park dating from just before 1700, named after Lady Mary Abney and associated with Dr Isaac Watts. In the early 18th century, the park was accessed via the frontages and gardens of two large mansions...
was made over to the new enterprise. Though the park had not been formalised in 1840 as a cemetery through Act of Parliament or consecration, and Church faculty law never applied - burial ground use, had, by the 1880s, already come to predominate over the wider landscape, access and educational objects of its founders.
The founders' financial and legal model had unfortunately not been as radical as their objects had required. Although the original directors also referred to themselves as trustees, having established a trust deed under which they sought to preserve the park in perpetuity, they let the park for operational purposes to the same individuals as a conventional Joint Stock Company (in common with most private cemeteries of the period), rather than perhaps breaking the mould as a provident society. The weakness of the model lay in the detail however, but this was not evident for thirty years. An eventual successful prosecution by the Crown, ruled that despite their unusual business model and the way in which plots were seemingly sold as freehold land, the legal arrangements were actually inadequate to achieve a different status from any other commercial cemetery, either for the company or the registered keepers of plots. In consequence, company income could not be held in trust for the park, but was to be treated as for any other commercial profit-making company and taxed accordingly.
Eventually sold on the open market to a wholly commercially-minded general cemetery company in the 1880s, established with a similar name, three new cemeteries were founded in London's suburbs or nearby countryside. From then onwards standardised park-like landscaping principles came to be applied at Abney Park, replacing much of the unique arboretum
Arboretum
An arboretum in a narrow sense is a collection of trees only. Related collections include a fruticetum , and a viticetum, a collection of vines. More commonly, today, an arboretum is a botanical garden containing living collections of woody plants intended at least partly for scientific study...
planting. Air pollution also took its toll, affecting the conifer walks. After the First World War, path infill began to be practiced; a situation that became severe in the 1950s and was continued into the 1970s, when the commercial cemetery company went into liquidation.
In 1978, apart from one forecourt building, the park passed to the local council as a burial ground and open space subject to the Local Authorities Cemeteries Order of 1977. For the next twenty-one years, there being only a small number of residual burial and monuments rights, the Council worked with local groups and relatives to accommodate these rights, and exercise discretion to allow occasional courtesy burials, where families had previously held deeds from the cemetery company; but by and large nature was allowed to take its course.
Abney Park became scheduled in 2009 as one of Britain's historic park and garden at risk from neglect and decay. Although the level of malicious damage is kept low by the conspicuous presence of staff and volunteers of the Abney Park Trust when maintaining the park; by frequent arts and environmental events promoted by the Trust; and by community safety initiatives involving the police and their community support officers; nevertheless over time it has taken its toll, leading to the current 'at risk' designation. The roof slates and roof flashings of the Abney Park Chapel have been damaged by unauthorised climbing and theft at times when the park was left unsupervised and unlocked overnight, and this has resulted in water seepage into the chapel walls which is now causing serious problems to the whole building. Similarly, from time to time, some sections of boundary wall become too weak due to people climbing over them, and decay has set in. However these matters could be put right and the park is a popular place to visit, with a range of educational, training and cultural events and an annual summer open day. It is a designated Local Nature Reserve and Conservation Area. Apart from the South Lodge extension on the forecourt, Abney Park's freehold is owned by the London Borough of Hackney
London Borough of Hackney
The London Borough of Hackney is a London borough of North/North East London, and forms part of inner London. The local authority is Hackney London Borough Council....
. The park is situated near Stoke Newington High Street, London N16, and it is leased to the Abney Park Trust. It occupies 32 acres (129,000 m²), which includes a nature reserve, a classroom, a visitor's centre and a central chapel which is disused. The park is normally opened by the Trust for free public access on weekdays and weekends from about 9.30 am to 5 pm, and for access or events agreed with the Trust at all other times.
The Egyptian Revival Entrance
One of the 'Magnificent SevenMagnificent Seven, London
The "Magnificent Seven" is an informal term applied to seven large cemeteries in London. They were established in the 19th century to alleviate overcrowding in existing parish burial grounds.-Background:...
' parkland cemeteries created in the early Victorian period, albeit set out in an entirely different way to the others and with somewhat wider purposes, Abney Park features an entrance designed by William Hosking
William Hosking
William Hosking FSA was a writer, lecturer, and architect who had an important influence on the growth and development of London in Victorian times...
FSA in collaboration with Joseph Bonomi the Younger
Joseph Bonomi the Younger
Joseph Bonomi the Younger was an English sculptor, artist, Egyptologist and museum curator.-Early life:Bonomi was born in London into a family of architects...
and the cemetery's founder George Collison II
George Collison
George Collison was an English Congregationalist and educator associated with Hackney Academy or Hackney College, which became part of New College London - itself part of the University of London.-Early life:...
. This frontage was built by John Jay
John Jay (builder)
John Jay was a building contractor and, earlier, a skilled stonemason, who owned a construction company located in the central City of London within Metropolitan London, England, during the 19th century and its period of rapid civic and railway expansion in the middle of the 19th century...
in the then increasingly popular 'Egyptian Revival' style, with hieroglyphics signifying the 'Abode of the Mortal Part of Man': a venture too far into the architecture of the African continent for Augustus Pugin
Augustus Pugin
Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin was an English architect, designer, and theorist of design, now best remembered for his work in the Gothic Revival style, particularly churches and the Palace of Westminster. Pugin was the father of E. W...
who pilloried the idea, hoping no-one would repeat such a radical departure from 'good' Christian gothic design (see illustration for Grounds of a Quaker School). A similar criticism had previously been made when the first Egyptian-style entrance to a western cemetery had been constructed at Mount Auburn Cemetery in the 1830s, on which Abney Park Cemetery was partially modelled. By contrast, figures who appreciated the composition, complimented William Hosking and Joseph Bonomi on their scholarly frontage design; including an arbiter of design taste, John Loudon
John Claudius Loudon
John Claudius Loudon was a Scottish botanist, garden and cemetery designer, author and garden magazine editor.-Background:...
, who described it as a judicious combination of two lodges with gates between'.
Bracing the controversy, Abney Park could claim to be the earliest complete design for a permanent 'Egyptian Revival' entranceway at a cemetery anywhere in the world. The gateway at Mount Auburn Cemetery from which it took its inspiration, was at that time still a temporary structure, being made of dusted wood and sand; its permanent 'Egyptian Revival' design was not built until two years after Abney Park's design opened. In England there were already some examples of the use of 'Egyptian Revival' architecture on a small-scale, including one example of a small 'Egyptian Revival' gate installed at a cemetery for Nonconformists near Sheffield in 1836. However, Abney Park Cemetery became the first to employ the style for cemetery buildings, and also the first to introduce it for a complete entrance design.
Abney Park Chapel
Abney Park Chapel, is a Grade II Listed chapel, designed by William Hosking and built by John Jay that is situated in Europe's first wholly nondenominational cemetery, Abney Park Cemetery, London....
, a feast of Puritan or northern European brick gothic yet with ample stone dressings and a little neoclassical design woven into its early Dissenting Gothic
Dissenting Gothic
Dissenting Gothic is a distinctive style of neo-Gothic architecture in its own right that emerged primarily in Britain, its colonies and North America, during the nineteenth century "Gothic Revival"..-The style:...
design style, had but one central chamber for the common use of all, and but one entrance. As such it was the first nondenominational cemetery chapel in Europe. William Hosking, in being handed the task of achieving this vision, became the first architect to design a nondenominational cemetery chapel in Europe. Underpinning this was a unique legal basis in comparison with the other garden cemeteries of its period; Abney Park was not set aside solely for cemetery use by Act of Parliament, and was not formally consecrated as burial land. Perhaps more so than any other it was entitled to be considered as a park as well as a cemetery.
Today it is accommodating this wide role again; burial rights ceased when the private company closed in 1978, enabling the park to now facilitate a wide range of projects in the arts, education, nature conservation and walking/recreation, besides offering new memorial trees and benches where ashes are scattered, and the occasional discretionary or courtesy burial.
Landscape
Maple
Acer is a genus of trees or shrubs commonly known as maple.Maples are variously classified in a family of their own, the Aceraceae, or together with the Hippocastanaceae included in the family Sapindaceae. Modern classifications, including the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group system, favour inclusion in...
trees) to Z for Zanthoxylum (American toothache trees).
The emphasis on an educational landscape, as opposed to a purely aesthetic, visually attractive picturesque, drew partly on a simplified version of John Loudon's
John Claudius Loudon
John Claudius Loudon was a Scottish botanist, garden and cemetery designer, author and garden magazine editor.-Background:...
'Gardenesque' concept, and applied something akin to this, but with a unique alphabetical approach, and no structural mounding, to a picturesque cemetery design. It was much admired by John Loudon, who described Abney Park Cemetery as 'the most highly ornamented cemetery in the vicinity of London', albeit that he favoured a more formal and classical approach to garden cemetery design as a general rule and, in 1843 developed design principles for such an approach.
At the Stoke Newington cemetery the botanical planting was carefully sited since the design sought to do as little as possible to change the existing picturesque parkland. This careful approach drew on that used at Mount Auburn Cemetery
Mount Auburn Cemetery
Mount Auburn Cemetery was founded in 1831 as "America's first garden cemetery", or the first "rural cemetery", with classical monuments set in a rolling landscaped terrain...
near Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
where Dearborn had emphasised the compatibility of horticulture and even an experimental garden with a cemetery, leading to the opening of a cemetery supported by the Massachusetts Horticultural Society; one that succeeded in establishing a picturesque landscape coupled with botanical garden specimens and an adjoining scientific garden. There were important differences however; the New England cemetery had benefited from a more sylvan setting than that of Abney Park, and a much larger estate. Nonetheless, the ties were evident. The founding directors of the Abney Park project were all Congregationalists
Congregational church
Congregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing Congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs....
, who together with other nonconformists
Nonconformism
Nonconformity is the refusal to "conform" to, or follow, the governance and usages of the Church of England by the Protestant Christians of England and Wales.- Origins and use:...
had strong links with their brethren in the new world, to where they had emigrated in search of religious freedom. George Collison, Abney Park Cemetery's company secretary, and the key force behind its radical design, recorded his visit to, and impressions of, Mount Auburn Cemetery, in a book published to coincide with the opening of the Stoke Newington cemetery. It also contains a complete list of all the arboretum species and varieties planted at Abney Park.
The concept of the arboretum -and indeed also a rosarium - was inspired by George Loddiges
Loddiges
The Loddiges family managed one of the most notable of the eighteenth and nineteenth century plant nurseries that traded in and introduced exotic plants, trees, shrubs, ferns, palms and orchids into European gardens....
FLS FZS, a local Hackney nurseryman who became a small shareholder in the cemetery company and was appointed to lead its landscape design, planting and educational labelling, to complement William Hosking
William Hosking
William Hosking FSA was a writer, lecturer, and architect who had an important influence on the growth and development of London in Victorian times...
's layout and building and engineering (drainage) scheme. The pair worked closely as a design team under the guiding influence of the third designer George Collison, who represented the client company both as its solicitor and principal learned visionary. Loddiges' earlier experience in designing an a to z arboretum at his Mare Street nursery, and possession of one of the largest ranges of trees and shrubs then grown for sale in Britain, ensured success.
The overall effect was to establish Abney Park as the most impressively landscaped garden cemetery of its period. However regrettably, Loddiges Nursery closed in the early 1850s and thereafter maintenance of the trees and shrubs and of their botanical labels, was impaired. Today Loddiges' work is of unparalleled significance to landscape design, being recognised as of European importance. Abney Park was the first London cemetery to be invited to join the Association of Significant Cemeteries in Europe (ASCE) and it is the only surviving example of an English landscape designed by George Loddiges FLS FZS.
The Campo Santo of the Dissenters
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
—they held the land itself to be of immense significance, for it had previously been two neighbouring and inter-related 18th-century parkland estates, the grounds of Abney House and Fleetwood House, where the non-conformist Doctor of Divinity, educationalist and poet Dr. Isaac Watts
Isaac Watts
Isaac Watts was an English hymnwriter, theologian and logician. A prolific and popular hymnwriter, he was recognised as the "Father of English Hymnody", credited with some 750 hymns...
lived and taught, and indeed wrote several of his popular books and hymns.
Due to these religious associations, Abney Park Cemetery rapidly became the most attractive Victorian resting place for nonconformist or dissenting ministers and educationalists, principally those from a Protestant dissenting tradition. Indeed it stands today as the most important burial place in the UK of 19th-century Congregational
Congregational church
Congregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing Congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs....
, Baptist
Baptist
Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...
, Methodist and Salvation Army
Salvation Army
The Salvation Army is a Protestant Christian church known for its thrift stores and charity work. It is an international movement that currently works in over a hundred countries....
ministers and educationalists, including Christopher Newman Hall
Christopher Newman Hall
Rev. Dr. Christopher Newman Hall LLB , born at Maidstone and known in later life as a 'Dissenter's Bishop', was one of the most celebrated nineteenth century English Nonconformist divines...
and many others, some of whom are mentioned below. Whereas Bunhill Fields
Bunhill Fields
Bunhill Fields is a cemetery in the London Borough of Islington, north of the City of London, and managed by the City of London Corporation. It is about 4 hectares in extent, although historically was much larger....
was described by the poet Southey as the Campo Santo (saints' abode) of the Dissenters
in respect of its late 17th century and 18th century burials, Abney Park took on the mantle during the Victorian period in the writings of E. Paxton Hood for the Religious Tract Society
Religious Tract Society
The Religious Tract Society, founded 1799, 56 Paternoster Row and 65 St. Paul's Chuchyard, was the original name of a major British publisher of Christian literature intended initially for evangelism, and including literature aimed at children, women, and the poor.The RTS is also notable for being...
.
Though it primarily attracted Congregational, Methodist and Salvation Army nonconformists, rather than certain other nonconformists such as Quakers, or non-Protestant nonconformists such as Catholics or Jewish people, Abney Park Cemetery more than any other nineteenth century cemetery was open to the burial of all regardless of their religious convictions or leanings. Whilst its founding directors were all Congregationalists and they were concerned to find a place for such burials, they expressly established the Stoke Newington cemetery as the first fully nondenominational cemetery in Europe (where anyone could be buried anywhere). Selection of a site with historical associations with Dr Isaac Watts served this purpose well, for he had been honoured in death with a bust in the Anglican Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey
The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, popularly known as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English,...
to complement his burial at the Independent's Bunhill Fields. Subsequently his hymns and scholarly works had become widely used and referred to by many denominations, such that in the nineteenth century the Rev. John Stroughton could write: "Dr. Watts was as far removed from sectarianism as a man could be". Abney Park Chapel
Abney Park Chapel
Abney Park Chapel, is a Grade II Listed chapel, designed by William Hosking and built by John Jay that is situated in Europe's first wholly nondenominational cemetery, Abney Park Cemetery, London....
, sometimes referred to informally as Dr Watts' Chapel, became its spiritual and landscape focal point. It sits in the heart of the cemetery; its axial walk to Church Street
Stoke Newington Church Street
Stoke Newington Church Street is a road in north London of the borough of Hackney. The road links Green Lanes in the west to Stoke Newington High Street , in the east...
, called Dr Watts' Walk, was chosen in 1845 as the most appropriate site in London for a public statue to the great man, sculpted by Edward Hodges Baily
Edward Hodges Baily
Edward Hodges Baily RA FRS - was an English sculptor who was born in Downend in Bristol.-Life:...
, RA
RA
RA may refer to:- Science :* Right ascension, an astronomical term* Relation algebra, a type of mathematical structure- Medicine :* Relative analgesia machine, a type of sedative* Right atrium, one of the four chambers of the heart...
FRS
FRS
-Education:* Frontier Regional School, a regional school located in South Deerfield, Massachusetts-Government:*FRS 567 states that, an accountant shall perfom his/ her duty with due care...
.
Educational establishments
Besides its religious associations, Abney Park has a strong educational pedigree. For example, its prominent director in the mid to late Victorian era, Charles Reed, was also the Chairman of the London School BoardLondon School Board
The School Board for London was an institution of local government and the first directly elected body covering the whole of London....
and Hackney's first MP. In fact, this part of north London, particularly Newington Green
Newington Green
Newington Green is an open space in north London which straddles the border between Islington and Hackney. It gives its name to the surrounding area, roughly bounded by Ball's Pond Road to the south, Petherton Road to the west, the southern section of Stoke Newington with Green Lanes-Matthias Road...
, had a long history of innovative education for boys and young men, known as dissenting academies
Dissenting academies
The dissenting academies were schools, colleges and nonconformist seminaries run by dissenters. They formed a significant part of England’s educational systems from the mid-seventeenth to nineteenth centuries....
.
Abney House was the first premises in England to be used exclusively as a Wesleyan
Methodism
Methodism is a movement of Protestant Christianity represented by a number of denominations and organizations, claiming a total of approximately seventy million adherents worldwide. The movement traces its roots to John Wesley's evangelistic revival movement within Anglicanism. His younger brother...
training college, from circa 1838. This followed use of temporary, shared facilities in Hackney, and prior to the building of their own spacious colleges and grounds, one in the north of England, and a second at Richmond
Richmond
Richmond often refers to:*Richmond, Virginia, the capital of Virginia*Richmond, North Yorkshire, the original Richmond in Yorkshire.*Richmond, London, previously Richmond, Surrey*Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Metro Vancouver...
Hill, to which the college at Abney Park moved in 1843. Abney House was then demolished. The governorship of the seminary was held by Rev. John Farrar, Secretary of the Methodist Conference on fourteen occasions and twice its elected President.
Next to Abney House on Church Street was Fleetwood House, used as the base for Newington Academy for Girls
Newington Academy for Girls
The Newington Academy for Girls, also known as Newington College for Girls, was a Quaker school established in 1824 in Stoke Newington, then north of London. In a time when girls' educational opportunities were limited, it offered a wide range of subjects "on a plan in degree differing from any...
, which was founded in 1824 by, among others, the Quaker scientist and abolitionist William Allen and run in a most enlightened and imaginative way by Susanna Corder, who later emigrated for a while to Boston and emerged as a talented biographer. It lost exclusive use of attractive grounds in the eastern part of Abney Park on formation of the cemetery, leaving only the school house and a small garden for the private use of the students. However, they were welcome to use the new cemetery's educational arboretum and this, along with Abney Park as a whole, was rarely shared with many others in the early years of the new cemetery, except at weekends. The school's innovative approach included transport arrangements; it commissioned the first school bus
School bus
A school bus is a type of bus designed and manufactured for student transport: carrying children and teenagers to and from school and school events...
in the world.
Famous people: burials & associations in the park
William Booth
William Booth was a British Methodist preacher who founded The Salvation Army and became its first General...
and Catherine Booth
Catherine Booth
Catherine Booth was the wife of the founder of The Salvation Army, William Booth. Because of her influence in the formation of The Salvation Army she was known as the 'Army Mother'....
, founders of The Salvation Army
The Salvation Army
The Salvation Army is a Protestant Christian church known for its thrift stores and charity work. It is an international movement that currently works in over a hundred countries....
, are buried in a prominent location close to Church Street and next to their son Bramwell Booth
Bramwell Booth
Bramwell Booth, CH was the first Chief of Staff and the second General of The Salvation Army , succeeding his father, William Booth.-Biography:...
and various SA commissioners, including Elijah Cadman
Elijah Cadman
Commissioner Elijah Cadman was an evangelist, an early member of The Salvation Army and the originator of the idea that Salvationists should wear uniforms...
, Frederick Booth-Tucker
Frederick Booth-Tucker
Commissioner Frederick St. George de Lautour Booth-Tucker, was a senior Salvation Army officer of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the son in law of General William Booth, the Army's Founder.-Early life:...
, George Scott Railton
George Scott Railton
George Scott Railton was the first Commissioner of The Salvation Army and second in command to its Founder General William Booth.-Early life:...
, the Army's first Commissioner, Theodore Kitching
Theodore Kitching
Commissioner Theodore Hopkins Kitching CBE was a prominent officer in The Salvation Army, acting as Secretary and confidant to Generals William Booth and Bramwell Booth, and was The Salvation Army's International Secretary for Europe from 1914 to 1916.Born in Ackworth in Yorkshire, the third of...
and T. Henry Howard
T. Henry Howard
Commissioner Thomas Henry Howard OF was the Second Chief of the Staff of The Salvation Army, succeeding Bramwell Booth on his appointment as General on the death of his father William Booth in 1912....
, the Chief of the Staff of The Salvation Army
Chief of the Staff of The Salvation Army
The Chief of the Staff of The Salvation Army is the officer who is second in command of the Army internationally, only behind the General, and is stationed at International Headquarters in London....
.
Earlier in the 19th century, one of the hottest issues for political and social reform in Stoke Newington society was the Abolition of Slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
. Indeed, William Wilberforce
William Wilberforce
William Wilberforce was a British politician, a philanthropist and a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780, eventually becoming the independent Member of Parliament for Yorkshire...
himself planned to be buried at St Mary's Church in Stoke Newington
Stoke Newington
Stoke Newington is a district in the London Borough of Hackney. It is north-east of Charing Cross.-Boundaries:In modern terms, Stoke Newington can be roughly defined by the N16 postcode area . Its southern boundary with Dalston is quite ill-defined too...
with his sister, his will being overturned on his death since parliament considered a state funeral at Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey
The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, popularly known as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English,...
more fitting. Wilberforce's son-in-law, the abolitionist lawyer James Stephen was also a frequent visitor to Stoke Newington
Stoke Newington
Stoke Newington is a district in the London Borough of Hackney. It is north-east of Charing Cross.-Boundaries:In modern terms, Stoke Newington can be roughly defined by the N16 postcode area . Its southern boundary with Dalston is quite ill-defined too...
, father living at the Fleetwood Summerhouse adjacent to Abney Park. Dr Thomas Binney
Thomas Binney
The Rev. Dr. Thomas Binney was an English Congregationalist divine of the 19th century, popularly known as the 'Archbishop of Nonconformity'...
, the 'Archbishop of Non-conformity' has a portrait in the National Portrait Gallery that shows him at the Anti-Slavery Society Convention (with Josiah Conder
Josiah Conder (editor and author)
Josiah Conder, sometimes spelt Condor, , correspondent of Robert Southey and well connected to romantic authors of his day, was editor of the British literary magazine The Eclectic Review, the Nonconformist and abolitionist newspaper The Patriot, the author of romantic verses, poetry, and many...
); Thomas Binney is buried close to the Church Street entrance in Abney Park Cemetery. Christopher Newman Hall
Christopher Newman Hall
Rev. Dr. Christopher Newman Hall LLB , born at Maidstone and known in later life as a 'Dissenter's Bishop', was one of the most celebrated nineteenth century English Nonconformist divines...
who was influential on the side of slavery emancipation in the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
is also buried here with his father, and the Rev. James Sherman
James Sherman (minister)
The Rev. James Sherman , was a Congregationalist and abolitionist; a popular preacher at The Castle Street Chapel in Reading from 1821 to 1836 and the Surrey Chapel, Blackfriars, London from 1836-54. He was successor at the Surrey Chapel to Rowland Hill...
who wrote the introduction to the book Uncle Tom's Cabin which greatly influenced abolition in America. The novel was partly based on Josiah Henson
Josiah Henson
Josiah Henson was an author, abolitionist, and minister. Born into slavery in Charles County, Maryland, he escaped to Ontario, Canada in 1830, and founded a settlement and laborer's school for other fugitive slaves at Dawn, near Dresden in Kent County...
, whose escape to freedom in Britain was assisted by the philanthropist Samuel Morley
Samuel Morley (MP)
Samuel Morley , was an English woollen manufacturer, philanthropist, dissenter , abolitionist, political radical, and statesman.-Introduction:...
who is buried at Abney Park Cemetery, and later contributed an introductory note to Josiah Henson's
Josiah Henson
Josiah Henson was an author, abolitionist, and minister. Born into slavery in Charles County, Maryland, he escaped to Ontario, Canada in 1830, and founded a settlement and laborer's school for other fugitive slaves at Dawn, near Dresden in Kent County...
own influential autobiography. The Rev. Joseph Ketley
Joseph Ketley
The Rev. Joseph Ketley was a mid-nineteenth century Congregational missionary and abolitionist in Guyana, the former British colony of British Guiana which was known as Demerara and Essequibo at the time when his mission was established. The Dutch colonies of Berbice‚ Demerara and Essequibo were...
a Congregational
Congregational church
Congregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing Congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs....
missionary and abolitionist in Demerara
Demerara
Demerara was a region in South America in what is now Guyana that was colonised by the Dutch in 1611. The British invaded and captured the area in 1796...
is also interred here, as is Rev. Dr John Morison
John Morison (pastor)
Rev. Dr John Morison 1791 - 1859) - occasionally spelt Morrison - was a longstanding editor of the Evangelical Magazine & Missionary Chronicle, author of theological and biographical subjects, and a Congregational pastor at Trevor Chapel, Chelsea, London...
, patron of the escaped slave and influential African-American autobiographer Moses Roper
Moses Roper
Moses Roper was a mulatto slave who wrote one of the major early books about life as a slave in the United States — Narrative of the Adventures and Escape of Moses Roper from American Slavery.-Life as a slave:...
.
Olaudah Equiano
Olaudah Equiano also known as Gustavus Vassa, was a prominent African involved in the British movement towards the abolition of the slave trade. His autobiography depicted the horrors of slavery and helped influence British lawmakers to abolish the slave trade through the Slave Trade Act of 1807...
's daughter Joanna Vassa
Joanna Vassa
Joanna Vassa was the only surviving child of the former slave and anti-slavery campaigner Olaudah Equiano. Her grave has recently been rediscovered, but little is known of her life....
, her father being a leading African slavery emancipator of the period. Jamaican emancipation is represented directly by the Rev. Samuel Oughton
Samuel Oughton
The Rev. Samuel Oughton , Baptist missionary to Jamaica 1836-1866, and colleague of William Knibb was an ardent slavery abolitionist who became an outspoken advocate of black labour rights in Jamaica during the gradual abolition of slavery in the late 1830s and thereafter. He was briefly...
and the Rev. Thomas Burchell
Thomas Burchell
Thomas Burchell was a leading Baptist missionary and slavery abolitionist in Jamaica in the early nineteenth century. It is not uncommon for Jamaican parents to name their children 'Burchell'; indeed it is almost as popular a Christian name as Manley.Burchell, along with James Phillippo , William...
who only narrowly escaped death at the hands of the planters; and their underlying Baptist support by Nathaniel Rogers M.D. A deacon at the Burchell Baptist church, the African Samuel Sharpe
Samuel Sharpe
Samuel 'Sam' Sharpe, or Sharp, National Hero of Jamaica was the slave leader behind the Jamaican Baptist War slave rebellion. Samuel Sharpe was born in the parish of St. James...
, is now a Jamaican national hero. Aaron Buzacott, the second Secretary of Anti-Slavery International
Anti-Slavery International
Anti-Slavery International is an international nongovernmental organization, charity and a lobby group, based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1839, it is the world's oldest international human rights organization, and the only charity in the United Kingdom to work exclusively against slavery and...
, originally known as the Anti-Slavery Society
Anti-Slavery Society
The Anti-Slavery Society or A.S.S. was the everyday name of two different British organizations.The first was founded in 1823 and was committed to the abolition of slavery in the British Empire. Its official name was the Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery Throughout the...
is buried here. At Abney Park Cemetery there are also some of the early settlers in Britain from the four corners of the world, such as the African, Thomas Caulker
Thomas Caulker
Thomas Canry Caulker was the Sherbro-born son of the King of Bompey...
, the son of the King of Bompey (now Sierra Leone) who signed an anti-slavery agreement that became included in a British Act of Parliament in the 1850s; and Leota, a native of the Samoa Islands
Samoa
Samoa , officially the Independent State of Samoa, formerly known as Western Samoa is a country encompassing the western part of the Samoan Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. It became independent from New Zealand in 1962. The two main islands of Samoa are Upolu and one of the biggest islands in...
whose life in London was due to the work of the London Missionary Society
London Missionary Society
The London Missionary Society was a non-denominational missionary society formed in England in 1795 by evangelical Anglicans and Nonconformists, largely Congregationalist in outlook, with missions in the islands of the South Pacific and Africa...
who sought to build schools and bring scripture to the inhabitants of the South Seas. Abney Park is one of the main burial places of nineteenth century missionaries; here, for example is the burial place of William Ellis
William Ellis (author)
William Ellis was an English missionary and author. He traveled through the Society Islands, Hawaiian Islands and Madagascar, and wrote several books describing his experiences.- Early life :...
, John Williams'
John Williams (missionary)
John Williams was an English missionary, active in the South Pacific. Born near London, England, he was trained as a foundry worker and mechanic...
wife and son, Dr Medhurst
Walter Henry Medhurst
Walter Henry Medhurst , was an English Congregationalist missionary to China, born in London and educated at St Paul's School, was one of the early translators of the Bible into Chinese language editions.-Early life:...
, and Edward Stallybrass. Also Sarah Buzacott, the wife of Aaron Buzacott the elder
Aaron Buzacott
Aaron Buzacott the elder , a Congregationalist colleague of John Williams , author of ethnographic works and co-translator of the Bible into the language of Rarotonga, was a central figure in the South Seas missionary work of the London Missionary Society, living on Rarotonga between 1828 and...
, who was a teacher at the London Missionary Society
London Missionary Society
The London Missionary Society was a non-denominational missionary society formed in England in 1795 by evangelical Anglicans and Nonconformists, largely Congregationalist in outlook, with missions in the islands of the South Pacific and Africa...
college at Rarotonga
Rarotonga
Rarotonga is the most populous island of the Cook Islands, with a population of 14,153 , out of the country's total population of 19,569.The Cook Islands' Parliament buildings and international airport are on Rarotonga...
in the South Seas. Many nonconformist divines are also buried here, for example Dr Alexander Fletcher, 'The Children's Friend'.
The evangelist Emily Gosse
Philip Henry Gosse
Philip Henry Gosse was an English naturalist and popularizer of natural science, virtually the inventor of the seawater aquarium, and a painstaking innovator in the study of marine biology...
, whose life of faith and works is still invigorating Christians today, but whose puritan beliefs were rather austere for her son, the literary genius Edmund Gosse
Edmund Gosse
Sir Edmund William Gosse CB was an English poet, author and critic; the son of Philip Henry Gosse and Emily Bowes.-Early life:...
, is buried in a simple grave near Dr Watts' Mound.
Close to Church Street is the burial of one of the cemetery's early Director and Trustees, one of the first two Members of Parliament for Hackney
Hackney (UK Parliament constituency)
Hackney was a two seat constituency in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom created under the Representation of the People Act, 1867 from the division of the county constituency of Middlesex and reformed under the Redistribution of Seats Act, 1885 as Hackney North, Hackney...
Sir Charles Reed FSA
Society of Antiquaries of London
The Society of Antiquaries of London is a learned society "charged by its Royal Charter of 1751 with 'the encouragement, advancement and furtherance of the study and knowledge of the antiquities and history of this and other countries'." It is based at Burlington House, Piccadilly, London , and is...
. Close by lies his father Dr Andrew Reed (1788-1862), a student of Rev. George Collison
George Collison
George Collison was an English Congregationalist and educator associated with Hackney Academy or Hackney College, which became part of New College London - itself part of the University of London.-Early life:...
and founder of the London Orphan Asylum. In 1834, along with the Rev. J. Matheson. Andrew Reed was sent to the Congregational Churches of America by the Congregational Union of England and Wales as a deputation in order to promote peace and friendship between the two communities. He spent six months in America and during his stay there Yale University conferred upon him an honorary Doctorate of Divinity. This strengthened the Congregationalists' transatlantic links ensuring the Rev George Collison's son a welcome when he visited to gain ideas for Abney Park cemetery's design from Mount Auburn Cemetery.
Here too is the Welsh MP Henry Richard
Henry Richard
Rev. Henry Richard MP , "the Apostle of Peace", was a Congregational minister and Welsh Member of Parliament, 1868-88. The son of the Rev...
, a mid C19th Secretary of the Peace Society
Peace Society
The Peace Society, International Peace Society or London Peace Society originally known as the Society for the Promotion of Permanent and Universal Peace, was a society founded on 14 June 1816 for the promotion of permanent and universal peace; it advocated a gradual, proportionate, and...
, instrumental in encouraging the first university in Wales at Aberystwyth along with its founder Sir Hugh Owen, whose own memorial is to the east of the Abney Park Cedar Circle. The Peace Society is well represented at Abney Park; two of its other C19th Secretaries, Rev. Nun Morgan Harry and Rev. John Jefferson are also buried here. Rajendra Chandra Chandra, Professor of Calcutta Medical College and physician, is also buried here with his wife.
Pioneering fire fighter James Braidwood
James Braidwood (fire fighter)
James Braidwood founded the world's first municipal fire service in Edinburgh in 1824, and was the first director of the London Fire Engine Establishment...
, credited with forming the first municipal fire brigade; Edward Calvert, engraver and painter and novelist Isabella Banks
Isabella Banks
Isabella Varley Banks , also known as Mrs G. Linnaeus Banks or Isabella Varley, was a 19th-century writer of English poetry and novels, born in Manchester, England...
, newspaper editor and playwright George Linnaeus Banks
George Linnaeus Banks
George Linnaeus Banks , husband of author Isabella Banks, was a British journalist, editor, poet, playwright, amateur actor, orator, and Methodist....
; and the African-Jamaican Baptist missionary Rev. Joseph Jackson Fuller
Joseph Jackson Fuller
The Rev. Joseph Jackson Fuller , Baptist missionary to the pre-colonial African Chiefdoms of the Cameroons was one of the earliest slaves to be freed in Jamaica who went on to become well-educated and travel internationally...
, are also buried in the Park. So too are Rev William Brock D.D.
William Brock (pastor)
Rev. Dr. William Brock , nondenominational and Baptist divine, first minister of Bloomsbury Chapel in Central London ; abolitionist, and supporter of missionary causes.-Early years:...
, John Hoppus D.D.
John Hoppus
Rev. John Hoppus LL.D., PH.D., F.R.S. , English Congregational minister, author, Fellow of the Royal Society, abolitionist and educational reformer, was appointed the first Chair of Logic and Philosophy of Mind at the newly formed London University , a position he secured and held against his...
of University College London, and John Harris D.D.
John Harris (college head)
John Harris , English Congregational minister, Christian essayist and author, became the first Principal of New College, St John’s Wood, London.-Early life:...
and Robert Halley
Robert Halley
Robert Halley was an English Congregationalist minister and abolitionist. He was noted for his association with the politics of Repeal of the Corn Laws, and became Classical Tutor at Highbury College and Principal of New College, St John's Wood, London.-Early life :Robert Halley was born in...
of New College London
New College London
New College London was founded as a Congregationalist college in 1850.-Predecessor institutions:...
.
Amongst the Theatre and Music Hall performers resting at Abney Park are George Leybourne
George Leybourne
Joe Sanders , better known as George Leybourne, was an English music hall performer. Often nicknamed "Champagne Charlie", Leybourne is best-remembered as the lyricist for The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze....
, Nelly Power
Nelly Power
Nelly Power , was an English singer, actress and performer in music hall, burlesque and pantomime. Her funeral attracted three to four thousand spectators at Abney Park Cemetery and a further great crowd at the start of the procession from her home.-Career:Power appeared in the music halls from...
, Albert Chevalier
Albert Chevalier
Albert Onesime Britannicus Gwathveoyd Louis Chevalier was an English comedian and actor.-Early life:Albert Chevalier was born in the Royal Crescent, in London's Notting Hill...
, G. W. Hunt, Herbert Campbell, Dan Crawley, Walter Laburnum and Fred Albert. These graves are cared for by the theatre charity The Music Hall Guild of Great Britain and America
The Music Hall Guild of Great Britain and America
The Music Hall Guild of Great Britain and America is a registered theatre charity and non-profit making theatre organisation based in London and was founded by Adrian Barry in 1992...
.
Other burials at the cemetery include the Chartist
Chartism
Chartism was a movement for political and social reform in the United Kingdom during the mid-19th century, between 1838 and 1859. It takes its name from the People's Charter of 1838. Chartism was possibly the first mass working class labour movement in the world...
leader and publisher James "Bronterre" O'Brien, whose life and work is celebrated at the cemetery each year, especially by the Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
community and those in the Labour Movement
Labour movement
The term labour movement or labor movement is a broad term for the development of a collective organization of working people, to campaign in their own interest for better treatment from their employers and governments, in particular through the implementation of specific laws governing labour...
; Dr John Pye Smith, the first dissenter to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society
Royal Society
The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
; Mary Hays
Mary Hays
Mary Hays was an English novelist and feminist.- Early years :Mary Hays was born in Southwark, London on Oct. 13, 1759. Almost nothing is known of her first 17 years. In 1779 she fell in love with John Eccles who lived on Gainsford Street, where she also lived. Their parents opposed the match but...
the feminist writer, Eric Walrond
Eric D. Walrond
Eric Derwent Walrond was an African-American Harlem Renaissance writer, who made a lasting contribution to literature; his work still being in print today as a classic of its era...
, the African-American Harlem Renaissance
Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned the 1920s and 1930s. At the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement", named after the 1925 anthology by Alain Locke...
writer, and Thomas William Robertson
Thomas William Robertson
Thomas William Robertson , usually known professionally as T. W. Robertson, was an Anglo-Irish dramatist and innovative stage director best known for a series of realistic or naturalistic plays produced in London in the 1860s that broke new ground and inspired playwrights such as W.S...
the dramatic author. John O'Connor Power (1846-1919), Irish Member of Parliament for Mayo, orator, barrister, radical journalist and author of 'The Making of an Orator' is buried here with his wife's family.
In a different way, Susanna Bostock is remembered, largely due to the dominance of her life-sized marble lion alongside a path close to the chapel. Along with the Wombwells, the Bostocks were mainly responsible for bringing Asian and African animals to the attention of the Victorian public. For part of the year giraffes lived close to the cemetery at a small farm in Yoakley Road.
First & Second World Wars
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and Second World War
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Unusually, Stoke Newington has two 'Cross of Sacrifice' monuments constructed shortly after the end of WW1 based on Blomfield's
Reginald Blomfield
Sir Reginald Theodore Blomfield was a prolific British architect, garden designer and author of the Victorian and Edwardian period.- Early life and career :...
famous design: one on the lawn in front of St. Mary's Church on Church Street, and one in front of the south-facing facade of Abney Park Chapel
Abney Park Chapel
Abney Park Chapel, is a Grade II Listed chapel, designed by William Hosking and built by John Jay that is situated in Europe's first wholly nondenominational cemetery, Abney Park Cemetery, London....
in the cemetery. The names associated with the first cross are displayed a short distance away (inside the foyer of the public library on Church Street) whilst the names of those associated with the second cross (those who are interred in the cemetery) are recorded on a north-facing wall added to the platform on which it stands unless burials are otherwise individually marked. Near the cemetery cross, the names of second world war servicemen who lost their lives and have been buried in the cemetery without separate commemoration, have also been displayed.
The cemetery's 'Cross of Sacrifice' serves as a landmark, but though rising on a ragstone platform of contrasting Portland Stone, it cannot be viewed on the approach from Church Street since the cemetery company chose to infill Dr Watts' axial walk at the time the war memorial was erected, so they designed the platform screen wall to prevent the cross from being seen from the south. The Trust hopes to change this if a redesign can be agreed, so as to display the cross to be seen from more directions and as a vantage point and focal point overlooking both directions of the original axis from the chapel spire and its ogee arch along Dr Watts' Walk, and on to Abney House gate; the axis that commemorates the life of the Rev. Dr Isaac Watts. Slightly off this exact axial alignment, is the small Blitz
The Blitz
The Blitz was the sustained strategic bombing of Britain by Nazi Germany between 7 September 1940 and 10 May 1941, during the Second World War. The city of London was bombed by the Luftwaffe for 76 consecutive nights and many towns and cities across the country followed...
memorial that records civilian deaths, closer to the south entrance (picture right).
Though it suffered extensive property damage in the war, Stoke Newington's death toll was relatively low by the standards of some other Hackney districts like Shoreditch
Shoreditch
Shoreditch is an area of London within the London Borough of Hackney in England. It is a built-up part of the inner city immediately to the north of the City of London, located east-northeast of Charing Cross.-Etymology:...
, and it would have been lower still, were it not for one incident on 13 October 1940, when a German bomb made a direct hit on a crowded shelter at Coronation Avenue, just off the high street. Most people in the shelter were killed, and as the illustration shows, the list of the dead from this one incident takes up nearly three of the four panels on the memorial. Many of the dead were Jewish and some were refugees from the Nazis.
The war has still not totally loosened its grip on the area. Of two known unexploded bombs (UXBs) remaining in Stoke Newington, one is located somewhere in Abney Park.
'Sweet Auburn' & woodland wildlife
| The Deserted Village"' | |
| by Oliver Goldsmith Oliver Goldsmith Oliver Goldsmith was an Irish writer, poet and physician known for his novel The Vicar of Wakefield , his pastoral poem The Deserted Village , and his plays The Good-Natur'd Man and She Stoops to Conquer... |
|
| poem | Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain Where health and plenty cheered the labouring swain, Where smiling spring its earliest visits paid, And parting summer's lingering blooms delayed: Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease," Seats of my youth, where every sport could please, How often have I loitered o'er your green, |
| link | http://www.netpoets.com/classic/poems/030003.htm |
As may have been implied already, Abney Park Cemetery was the only garden cemetery of its era to be influenced by New World cemetery design ideas due to the strong links between its founders and New England; in particular Boston. The Stoke Newington cemetery reflects the design style adopted for Mount Auburn, for example in its use of an Egyptian Revival entrance and arboretum. However, though its 'model' lay in the New World, it drew on different romantic landscape associations. Whereas Mount Auburn Cemetery celebrated the 'Sweet Auburn' of poetry, in particular the nature and woodland associated with the Auburn village area, it was the 'romance' of religious and historical associations that primarily attracted the founders of London's first nondenominational garden cemetery, to Lady Mary Abney's estate which had served as an inspiration to the celebrated Isaac Watts. Nonetheless, on its opening, Abney Park was by far the most sylvan of all garden cemeteries in Britain; its many stately trees imbued the landscape with a uniquely well-timbered inheritance or 'green cloak', and plans were put in train to encourage this further with collections of trees arranged along, and set back from, path edges. Whereas the cemetery at Mount Auburn had been blessed with a natural woodland setting, well suited to its founders' ethos of creating an Elysian paradise, Abney Park would take some time to more closely reflect its predominantly woodland style of cemetery design and a more transcendental view of nature as proposed by Emerson, and Thoreau in New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
.
Conservation ethic
Conservation is an ethic of resource use, allocation, and protection. Its primary focus is upon maintaining the health of the natural world: its, fisheries, habitats, and biological diversity. Secondary focus is on materials conservation and energy conservation, which are seen as important to...
in the London Borough of Hackney.
Under careful management the woodland is slowly becoming enriched through natural regeneration. The northern areas are slowly returning to native oaks with a hornbeam and hawthorn understory, and a woodland ground flora that includes Wood False Brome grass and Wood Spurge; the whole being interspersed with naturalising exotic thorns and service trees
Service Tree of Fontainebleau
Sorbus latifolia is a species of whitebeam that is endemic to the area around Fontainebleau, south of Paris in France, where it has been known since the early eighteenth century.-Physical description:It is a medium-sized deciduous tree that grows to between ten and twenty metres tall, with a trunk...
to add a cross-cultural dimension. Meanwhile, the sandy brickearth soils that extend from Church Street along Dr Watts' Walk to the chapel lawns, the sole surviving heathland in Hackney, are returning to a lighter structure based on Silver Birch woodland and healthy species such as bracken fern. Today, a range of woodland birds, mammals and butterflies are supported; the grounds forming one of north London's largest breeding sites so close to the City for some very attractive species such as the Speckled Wood
Speckled Wood
The Speckled Wood is a butterfly found in and on the borders of woodland throughout much of the Palearctic ecozone.In North Europe, Central Europe , Asia Minor, Syria, Russia and Central Asia where subspecies P. a. tircis occurs it is brown with pale yellow or cream spots and darker upperwing...
butterfly.
Nature changes gradually however, and the ecology will need active habitat management if these semi-natural sylvan qualities are to be preserved and enhanced, and to ensure that the naturalising exotic arboretum trees (such as Various-leaved Hawthorn and Service Tree of Fontainebleau
Service Tree of Fontainebleau
Sorbus latifolia is a species of whitebeam that is endemic to the area around Fontainebleau, south of Paris in France, where it has been known since the early eighteenth century.-Physical description:It is a medium-sized deciduous tree that grows to between ten and twenty metres tall, with a trunk...
) and plans for the replacement of Loddiges
Loddiges
The Loddiges family managed one of the most notable of the eighteenth and nineteenth century plant nurseries that traded in and introduced exotic plants, trees, shrubs, ferns, palms and orchids into European gardens....
' perimeter A to Z arboretum, contribute their valuable educational and botanical interest to parts of the grounds.
Endpiece
Part of a Victorian account of a visit to admire the beauties of Abney Park Cemetery reads:There is a beautiful cemetery in Stoke Newington, and it was given to the inhabitants in memory of Lady Abney
Lady Mary Abney
Mary, Lady Abney inherited the Manor of Stoke Newington in the early 18th century, which lies about five miles north of St Paul's Cathedral in the City of London...
, who was a sincere friend to Dr. Watts. There is in it a pretty little church, where funeral services are performed by all denominations of Christians.
Lady Abney was very liberal in her religious views, and the cemetery is, with its church, open to all alike, and though its grounds were never consecrated, yet many rigid churchmen have been buried in it. There is no quieter burial spot within a dozen miles of London in any direction, and there are cedars of Lebanon in it, wide lawns, and beautiful flowers.
There is an old clergyman in the church, who is always ready to officiate for a small fee on funeral occasions. He is over eighty years old, his hair is like the snow, and he is a fit companion to such a solemn place.
One shining evening, with a female friend we visited the cemetery, and stopped in the little [largely] Gothic chapel
Abney Park Chapel
Abney Park Chapel, is a Grade II Listed chapel, designed by William Hosking and built by John Jay that is situated in Europe's first wholly nondenominational cemetery, Abney Park Cemetery, London....
to talk with the venerable clergyman. The tears actually sprung over his eyelids when we said that we came from America.
The old man asked a thousand questions about the wonderful far land of liberty in the west, which we were glad to answer. Almost every family among the poor respectable classes in England, has some member, or relation in America.
Gallery
Abney Park Cemetery is one of the Magnificent SevenMagnificent Seven, London
The "Magnificent Seven" is an informal term applied to seven large cemeteries in London. They were established in the 19th century to alleviate overcrowding in existing parish burial grounds.-Background:...
. It is one of the five cemeteries located north of the river Thames.
Media & Pop Culture
- The graveyard scenes in the music video for the song Back to BlackBack to BlackBack to Black is the second studio album by English recording artist Amy Winehouse, released on 27 October 2006 by Island Records. It is the last album released in her lifetime. The album incorporates 1960s soul music styles and modern R&B production, with subjective lyrics that concern...
, by singer Amy WinehouseAmy WinehouseAmy Jade Winehouse was an English singer-songwriter known for her powerful deep contralto vocals and her eclectic mix of musical genres including R&B, soul and jazz. Winehouse's 2003 debut album, Frank, was critically successful in the UK and was nominated for the Mercury Prize...
were filmed at Abney Park Cemetery.
- The SteampunkSteampunkSteampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, and speculative fiction that came into prominence during the 1980s and early 1990s. Steampunk involves a setting where steam power is still widely used—usually Victorian era Britain or "Wild West"-era United...
band Abney ParkAbney Park (band)Abney Park is a band based in Seattle that mixes elements of industrial dance, world music, and steampunk influenced lyrics in their work. Their name comes from Abney Park Cemetery in London...
takes its name from the cemetery.
- Abney Park is the setting for a murder in Elizabeth George'sElizabeth GeorgeSusan Elizabeth George is an American author of mystery novels set in Great Britain.Eleven of her novels featuring her lead character Inspector Lynley have been adapted for television by the BBC as The Inspector Lynley Mysteries.-Biography:George was born in Warren, Ohio to Robert Edwin and Anne ...
latest book, The Body of Death.
- Abney Park is used to depict some area of Hampstead Heath park in Waking The DeadWaking the Dead (TV series)Waking the Dead is a British television police procedural crime drama series produced by the BBC featuring a fictional Cold Case Unit comprising CID police officers, a psychological profiler and a forensic scientist. A pilot episode aired in September 2000 and there have been a total of nine series...
season 2 "Thin Air" episodes.
Transport & Access
- Stoke Newington railway stationStoke Newington railway stationStoke Newington railway station links Stoke Newington to Liverpool Street in central London, and to Cheshunt and Enfield Town further north. Trains generally run every fifteen minutes....
- The nearest London Underground station is Manor HouseManor House tube stationManor House tube station is a station on the Piccadilly line of the London Underground, on the boundary between Travelcard Zone 2 and Zone 3. It straddles the border between the London Boroughs of Hackney and Haringey, the postal address and three of the entrances being in the former, and one...
(About 2 km away) on the Piccadilly linePiccadilly LineThe Piccadilly line is a line of the London Underground, coloured dark blue on the Tube map. It is the fifth busiest line on the Underground network judged by the number of passengers transported per year. It is mainly a deep-level line, running from the north to the west of London via Zone 1, with...
.
Buses: 73 (the recommended route from the West End), 67, 76, 106, 243, 276
On foot: The Capital Ring
Capital Ring
The Capital Ring is a strategic walking route that is being promoted by London's 33 local councils, led by the City of London Corporation in partnership with the Greater London Authority and its functional body for regional transport, Transport for London, through which much of the funding is...
, a Strategic Walking Route from/to Highgate and Hackney Wick.
On bicycle: Parking available at Church Street entrance
Disabled access & facilities: Main entrance
Car Club (car-sharing): 'Streetcar' at Wilmer Place car park off Church Street
Further reading
- Joyce, Paul, A Guide to Abney Park Cemetery, Abney Park Cemetery Trust, 1994, ISBN 0-9509420-2-2.
- Meller, Hugh & Brian Parsons, London Cemeteries: an illustrated guide and gazetteer, The History Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0-7509-4622-3.
- Beach, Darren, London's Cemeteries, Metro Guides, 2006, ISBN 1-902910-23-0.
- The very commercial, but nonetheless interesting book about the Tottenham OutrageTottenham OutrageThe Tottenham Outrage is the name given to an armed robbery and double murder which took place in Tottenham, North London and Walthamstow, Essex, on 23 January 1909, which was carried out by two anarchists, Paul Helfeld and Jacob Lepidus .The "Outrage" became a cause célèbre in Edwardian London,...
(where PC Tyler was killed): Harris, Janet Dorothy, Outrage! An Edwardian Tragedy, Wilson Harris Publications, 2000, ISBN 0-9539641-0-8 or visit the book's website. - London Gardens Online