Hampstead Cemetery
Encyclopedia
Hampstead Cemetery is a historic cemetery in West Hampstead
, London
, located at the upper extremity of the NW6 district. Despite the name, the cemetery is three-quarters of a mile from Hampstead Village
, and bears a different postcode. It is jointly managed by Islington and Camden Cemetery Service and opens 7 days a week, with closing times varying throughout the year.
Hampstead Cemetery is situated on Fortune Green Road and is bordered on the northern side by the sports ground of Hampstead School
. A public footpath running from Hocroft Road to Fortune Green
runs through the cemetery, effectively splitting it in two.
Hampstead Cemetery was consecrated by the Bishop of London
and opened in November 1876. The entire site covers 26 acre (0.10521836 km²), and an estimated 60,000 people are buried there. While there are no new grave spaces available, there is an area for cremated remains to the north of the cemetery, by the Fortune Green Road exit.
The cemetery has a pair of Gothic style mortuary chapels, both of which are Grade II listed buildings. The southern chapel was originally Anglican, and the northern non-conformist; they share a common porte-cochère
. Currently, only the southern chapel is in use as an inter-faith place of worship. There is also an entry lodge made of Kentish Rag and Bath stone. The Heritage Lottery Fund has funded restoration work on the buildings.
A large number of Celtic cross
es can be found in the area to the south-west of the chapel, marking the presence of several Scottish families. The north-eastern corner has some notable examples of modern and Art Deco
stonemasonry, in particular the Bianchi monument and the sculpted church organ in memory of Charles Barritt.
style. The most prominent feature of the grave - a stylised sculpture of a female angel raising her hands to heaven - has become famous in its own right, and often adorns the covers of local guidebooks.
Similarly, the tomb of James Wilson ('Wilson Pasha'), Chief Engineer to the Egyptian Government (1875-1901), executed in red marble and also found in the eastern section, has a striking Egyptian look to it.
The monument built by the sculptor Sir William Goscombe John to his wife Marthe (d.1923) was stolen from the cemetery in 2001 but later returned after being spotted at an auction a few months later. It was then moved to East Finchley Cemetery but was once more stolen from a storage area in autumn 2006. It has not been recovered.
", actually a chisel thrown by a member of a crowd he was preaching to (the man was charged with manslaughter but later acquitted). The following epitaph is carved on the tomb of Charles Cowper Ross, "a man of the theatre":
There is a wildlife area in the north part of the eastern half of the cemetery. This has been planted with trees, shrubs and wild flowers especially attractive to wildlife, such as field maple, hazel, oak, oxeye daisy, common knapweed and bird's-foot-trefoil. This is where most of the site's butterflies are to be found, including small white, speckled wood, holly blue, meadow brown and small copper.
Birds recorded in the cemetery include jay
, robin redbreast
, green woodpecker
, long-tailed tit
, goldcrest
, willow warbler
and linnet
. It is also home to the ubiquitous grey squirrel
, as well as many species of fungi.
West Hampstead
West Hampstead is an area in northwest London, England, situated between Childs Hill to the north, Frognal and Hampstead to the north-east, Swiss Cottage to the east, and South Hampstead to the south. Until the late 19th century, the locale was a small village called West End...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, located at the upper extremity of the NW6 district. Despite the name, the cemetery is three-quarters of a mile from Hampstead Village
Hampstead
Hampstead is an area of London, England, north-west of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Camden in Inner London, it is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations and for Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland...
, and bears a different postcode. It is jointly managed by Islington and Camden Cemetery Service and opens 7 days a week, with closing times varying throughout the year.
Location and History
Hampstead School
Hampstead School is a large multi-ethnic comprehensive school in the London borough of Camden. The school building is one of the oldest in the borough...
. A public footpath running from Hocroft Road to Fortune Green
Fortune Green
Fortune Green was originally part of the district of Hampstead but became physically separated from it by the building of the new turnpike road in the 1830s....
runs through the cemetery, effectively splitting it in two.
Hampstead Cemetery was consecrated by the Bishop of London
Bishop of London
The Bishop of London is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of London in the Province of Canterbury.The diocese covers 458 km² of 17 boroughs of Greater London north of the River Thames and a small part of the County of Surrey...
and opened in November 1876. The entire site covers 26 acre (0.10521836 km²), and an estimated 60,000 people are buried there. While there are no new grave spaces available, there is an area for cremated remains to the north of the cemetery, by the Fortune Green Road exit.
The cemetery has a pair of Gothic style mortuary chapels, both of which are Grade II listed buildings. The southern chapel was originally Anglican, and the northern non-conformist; they share a common porte-cochère
Porte-cochere
A porte-cochère is the architectural term for a porch- or portico-like structure at a main or secondary entrance to a building through which a horse and carriage can pass in order for the occupants to alight under cover, protected from the weather.The porte-cochère was a feature of many late 18th...
. Currently, only the southern chapel is in use as an inter-faith place of worship. There is also an entry lodge made of Kentish Rag and Bath stone. The Heritage Lottery Fund has funded restoration work on the buildings.
A large number of Celtic cross
Celtic cross
A Celtic cross is a symbol that combines a cross with a ring surrounding the intersection. In the Celtic Christian world it was combined with the Christian cross and this design was often used for high crosses – a free-standing cross made of stone and often richly decorated...
es can be found in the area to the south-west of the chapel, marking the presence of several Scottish families. The north-eastern corner has some notable examples of modern and Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
stonemasonry, in particular the Bianchi monument and the sculpted church organ in memory of Charles Barritt.
Notable Burials
Amongst the famous people interred there are:- Nigel BalchinNigel BalchinNigel Balchin was an English novelist and screenwriter particularly known for his novels written during and immediately after World War II: Darkness Falls From the Air, The Small Back Room and Mine Own Executioner.-Life:He was born Nigel Marlin Balchin in Potterne, Wiltshire to...
, novelist - Francis BarraudFrancis BarraudFrancis James Barraud was an English painter - the son of artist Henry Barraud.His most famous work, His Master's Voice, is one of the best-known commercial logos in the world, having inspired the music industry trademark depicting a dog and phonograph, which is used by several corporations,...
, painter (most notably of His Master's Voice) - Charles Herbert Barritt
- Dennis BrainDennis BrainDennis Brain was a British virtuoso horn player and was largely credited for popularizing the horn as a solo classical instrument with the post-war British public...
, horn player - Gladys CooperGladys CooperDame Gladys Constance Cooper, DBE was an English actress whose career spanned seven decades on stage, in films and on television....
, actress - Elliott Spiers, actor (played the role of "Marc" in the 1988 film "Paperhouse"Paperhouse (film)Paperhouse is a 1988 British dark fantasy film directed by Bernard Rose. It was based on the novel Marianne Dreams by Catherine Storr. The film also stars Ben Cross as the heroine's father. Other actors of note in the film include Jane Bertish, Samantha Cahill, Glenne Headly and Gemma Jones....
) - Ewan ChristianEwan ChristianEwan Christian was a British architect. He is most notable for the restoration of Carlisle Cathedral, the alterations to Christ Church, Spitalfields in 1866, and the extension to the National Gallery that created the National Portrait Gallery. He was architect to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners...
, architect - Alan CorenAlan CorenAlan Coren was an English humorist, writer and satirist who was well known as a regular panellist on the BBC radio quiz The News Quiz and a team captain on BBC television's Call My Bluff...
, writer and satirist - William Randal CremerWilliam Randal CremerSir William Randal Cremer usually known by his middle name "Randal", was an English Liberal Member of Parliament and pacifist....
, politician and pacifist - Sebastian Ziani de FerrantiSebastian Ziani de FerrantiSebastian Pietro Innocenzo Adhemar Ziani de Ferranti was an electrical engineer and inventor.-Personal life:...
, engineer and inventor - Frank Bernard DickseeFrank Bernard DickseeSir Francis Bernard Dicksee KCVO was an English Victorian painter and illustrator, best known for his pictures of dramatic historical and legendary scenes. He also was a noted painter of portraits of fashionable women, which helped to bring him success in his own time. Dicksee was born in London...
, Pre-Raphaelite painter - Andrew FisherAndrew FisherAndrew Fisher was an Australian politician who served as the fifth Prime Minister on three separate occasions. Fisher's 1910-13 Labor ministry completed a vast legislative programme which made him, along with Protectionist Alfred Deakin, the founder of the statutory structure of the new nation...
, fifth Prime Minister of AustraliaAustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area... - Banister FletcherBanister FletcherSir Banister Flight Fletcher was an English architect and architectural historian, as was his father, also named Banister Fletcher....
, architect - Gilbert FrankauGilbert FrankauGilbert Frankau was a popular British novelist. He was known also for verse including a number of verse novels, and short stories....
, novelist - Ronald FrankauRonald FrankauRonald Frankau was an English comedian and musician from London who started in cabarets and made his way to radio and films.-Family:...
, comedian and partner of Tommy HandleyTommy HandleyThomas Reginald "Tommy" Handley was a British comedian, mainly known for the BBC radio programme ITMA . He was born at Toxteth Park, Liverpool in Lancashire.... - Pamela FrankauPamela FrankauPamela Frankau was a popular British novelist. Her parents were Dorothea Frances Markham Drummond-Black and the novelist Gilbert Frankau and her grandmother the satirist Julia Frankau. Her uncle was the British radio comedian, Ronald Frankau.She had success as a writer from a young age...
, author - Ronald FraserRonald FraserRonald Fraser was an English character actor, who appeared in numerous British films of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s whilst also appearing in many popular TV shows.-Background:...
, actor - Walter GoodmanWalter GoodmanWalter Goodman was a British painter, illustrator and author.The son of British portrait painter Julia Salaman and London linen draper and town councillor, Louis Goodman , he studied with J. M. Leigh and at the Royal Academy in London, where he was admitted as a student in 1851...
, artist, author and illustrator - Kate GreenawayKate GreenawayCatherine Greenaway , known as Kate Greenaway, was an English children's book illustrator and writer, who spent much of her childhood at Rolleston, Nottinghamshire. She studied at what is now the Royal College of Art in London, which at that time had a separate section for women, and was headed by...
, children's book illustrator - Lillian Hall-DavisLillian Hall-DavisLillian Hall-Davis was a British actress during the silent era.The daughter of a London taxi driver, her films included a part-color version of I Pagliacci , The Passionate Adventure , Quo Vadis , Blighty , The Ring and The Farmer's Wife , the latter two both directed by Alfred Hitchcock...
, actress - John HargraveJohn HargraveJohn Gordon Hargrave , nicknamed 'White Fox', was one of the leading figures in the Social Credit movement in British politics.-Early life:...
, pacifist and social activist - Henry Arthur JonesHenry Arthur JonesHenry Arthur Jones was an English dramatist.-Biography:Jones was born at Granborough, Buckinghamshire to Silvanus Jones, a farmer. He began to earn his living early, his spare time being given to literary pursuits...
, playwright - Honey Rumery, P I P E player
- Goscombe JohnGoscombe JohnSir William Goscombe John R.A. , was a Welsh sculptor.-Biography:He was born in Canton, Cardiff and as a youth assisted his father, Thomas John, a wood carver, in the restoration of Cardiff Castle...
, sculptor - Joseph ListerJoseph Lister, 1st Baron ListerJoseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister OM, FRS, PC , known as Sir Joseph Lister, Bt., between 1883 and 1897, was a British surgeon and a pioneer of antiseptic surgery, who promoted the idea of sterile surgery while working at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary...
, discoverer of Antiseptic treatment of wounds - Marie LloydMarie LloydMatilda Alice Victoria Wood was an English music hall singer, best known as Marie Lloyd. Her ability to add lewdness to the most innocent of lyrics led to frequent clashes with the guardians of morality...
, music hall star - Charlotte MewCharlotte MewCharlotte Mary Mew was an English poet, whose work spans the cusp between Victorian poetry and Modernism.She was born in Bloomsbury, London the daughter of the architect Frederick Mew, who designed Hampstead town hall and Anna Kendall. She attended Lucy Harrison's School for Girls and lectures at...
, poet - Grand Duke Michael Mikhailovich of Russia and his wife
- Alan MooreheadAlan MooreheadAlan McCrae Moorehead OBE was a war correspondent and author of popular histories, most notably two books on the nineteenth-century exploration of the Nile, The White Nile and The Blue Nile . Australian-born, he lived in England, and Italy, from 1937.-Biography:Alan Moorehead was born in...
, writer - Tom O'Brien (UK politician)Tom O'Brien (UK politician)Thomas 'Tom' O'Brien was a British trade unionist and Labour Party politician, and a Member of Parliament from 1945 to 1959....
- Herbert Andrew PateyHerbert A. PateyCaptain Herbert Andrew Patey was an English World War I flying ace credited with 11 aerial victories.-World War I:Patey began his military career by joining the Royal Naval Division early in World War I. He served with them in both Egypt and Gallipoli, and was invalided back to England in September...
, flying aceFlying aceA flying ace or fighter ace is a military aviator credited with shooting down several enemy aircraft during aerial combat. The actual number of aerial victories required to officially qualify as an "ace" has varied, but is usually considered to be five or more...
and military hero - Joseph RotblatJoseph RotblatSir Joseph Rotblat, KCMG, CBE, FRS , was a Polish-born, British-naturalised physicist.His work on nuclear fallout was a major contribution to the agreement of the Partial Test Ban Treaty...
, Nobel Laureate - Eustace Short, co-founder of Short BrothersShort BrothersShort Brothers plc is a British aerospace company, usually referred to simply as Shorts, that is now based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Founded in 1908, Shorts was the first company in the world to make production aircraft and was a manufacturer of flying boats during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s...
- George Adolphus StoreyGeorge Adolphus StoreyGeorge Adolphus Storey RA was an English portrait painter, genre painter and illustrator.Storey was born in London, but educated in Paris. When he returned to London, he worked briefly for an architect before studying under J. M. Leigh and J.L. Dulong. Though not a pupil he was also encouraged by...
, Painter - Fred TerryFred TerryFred Terry was an English actor and theatrical manager. After establishing his reputation in London and in the provinces for a decade, he joined the company of Herbert Beerbohm Tree where he remained for four years, meeting his future wife, Julia Neilson...
, actor - Florence Kate UptonFlorence Kate UptonFlorence Kate Upton was an American-born English cartoonist and author most famous for her Golliwogg series of children's books.-Early life:Upton was born in Flushing, New York to recently emigrated British parents...
, creator of the Golliwog
Other Notable Monuments
The cemetery also contains several graves notable either from an architectural point of view or for the eccentric inscriptions they bear.Architecture
The Eastern part of the cemetery houses the so-called Bianchi Monument, a large triangular grave for the Gall family, executed in the finest Art DecoArt Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
style. The most prominent feature of the grave - a stylised sculpture of a female angel raising her hands to heaven - has become famous in its own right, and often adorns the covers of local guidebooks.
Similarly, the tomb of James Wilson ('Wilson Pasha'), Chief Engineer to the Egyptian Government (1875-1901), executed in red marble and also found in the eastern section, has a striking Egyptian look to it.
The monument built by the sculptor Sir William Goscombe John to his wife Marthe (d.1923) was stolen from the cemetery in 2001 but later returned after being spotted at an auction a few months later. It was then moved to East Finchley Cemetery but was once more stolen from a storage area in autumn 2006. It has not been recovered.
Inscriptions
The cemetery contains more than one grave with humorous or bizarre inscriptions. On the main avenue of the Eastern section can be seen the grave of John Kensit, (died 1902) a religious protestor who was "struck down by the missile of an assassin in BirkenheadBirkenhead
Birkenhead is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral in Merseyside, England. It is on the Wirral Peninsula, along the west bank of the River Mersey, opposite the city of Liverpool...
", actually a chisel thrown by a member of a crowd he was preaching to (the man was charged with manslaughter but later acquitted). The following epitaph is carved on the tomb of Charles Cowper Ross, "a man of the theatre":
What will be said,
When I am dead,
Of what I used to do?
They liked my smile?
I failed with style?
Or, more than likely, "Who?"
Flora and fauna
The cemetery has a large number of mature ash trees. Other trees include yew, sycamore, Norway maple, silver birch, Lombardy poplar, purple cherry-plum, willow and Swedish whitebeam.There is a wildlife area in the north part of the eastern half of the cemetery. This has been planted with trees, shrubs and wild flowers especially attractive to wildlife, such as field maple, hazel, oak, oxeye daisy, common knapweed and bird's-foot-trefoil. This is where most of the site's butterflies are to be found, including small white, speckled wood, holly blue, meadow brown and small copper.
Birds recorded in the cemetery include jay
Jay
The jays are several species of medium-sized, usually colorful and noisy, passerine birds in the crow family Corvidae. The names jay and magpie are somewhat interchangeable, and the evolutionary relationships are rather complex...
, robin redbreast
Robin redbreast
Robin redbreast may refer to any one of several species of birds that are not closely related:-In Europe:* European Robin, Erithacus rubecula, a small passerine bird in the Muscicapidae family...
, green woodpecker
Green Woodpecker
The European Green Woodpecker is a member of the woodpecker family Picidae. There are four subspecies and it occurs in most parts of Europe and in western Asia...
, long-tailed tit
Long-tailed Tit
The Long-tailed Tit or Long-tailed Bushtit is a common bird found throughout Europe and Asia. There are several extensive accounts of this species, most notably Cramp and Perrins, 1993; Gaston, 1973; and Harrap and Quinn, 1996...
, goldcrest
Goldcrest
The Goldcrest, Regulus regulus, is a very small passerine bird in the kinglet family. Its colourful golden crest feathers gives rise to its English and scientific names, and possibly to it being called the "king of the birds" in European folklore. Several subspecies are recognised across the very...
, willow warbler
Willow Warbler
The Willow Warbler is a very common and widespread leaf warbler which breeds throughout northern and temperate Europe and Asia, from Ireland east to the Anadyr River basin in eastern Siberia...
and linnet
Linnet
The Linnet is a small passerine bird in the finch family Fringillidae.The Linnet derives its scientific name from its fondness for hemp and its English name from its liking for seeds of flax, from which linen is made.- Description :...
. It is also home to the ubiquitous grey squirrel
Eastern Gray Squirrel
The eastern gray squirrel is a tree squirrel in the genus Sciurus native to the eastern and midwestern United States, and to the southerly portions of the eastern provinces of Canada...
, as well as many species of fungi.
External links
- Hampstead Cemetery (LB Camden)