Does anyone know about garden cemeteries in London? As I understand it, these are churchyards (churches themselves no longer exist) that have been converted into parks/gardens and often many of the stones or monuments remain. I know of one near our Thistle Euston hotel and also St. George's Gardens near Coram's Fields in Bloomsbury, but that's about it. I'd be glad to learn of more from Londoners. Thanks!

I don't know too much about cemetery gardens but a lot of garden/squares were built on top of old 17th century plague pits - Golden Square near where I work is one...

I forgot to mention one not far from Tallulah -- St. Giles Churchyard Gardens on St. Giles High Street (intersects with Shaftsbury Avenue). Tallulah, you must be near the John Snow pub?

I think you've got your terms confused.

"Garden cemeteries" was a term invented to describe the cemeteries developed, away from the centre of town, in the early and mid 19th century. They were greenfield sites, landscaped in a way evocative of the parks being created at the time, both in and around cities, and on the property of rural proprietors. Although chapels were often incorporated in these new cemeteries, they weren't connected with the Anglican church. The best known examples are the cemeteries at Highgate and Kensall Rise: they were mostly, by our standards, very large.

These cemeteries were distinguished from the overcrowded (seriously: corpses would rise) churchyards in the centre, and that's why they came known as "garden cemeteries".

So: are you after other examples of Highgate? Or examples of inner-city cemeteries that aren't (and never were) connected to churches: the best-known example in northern Central London is, of course, Bunhill Fields. Or no longer in use inner city church graveyards: my own favourite is St Bartholemew's near Smithfield, where the graves form a kind of stone park. Or 19th century cemeteries that are now more park than necropolis, like Abney Park in Stke Newington?

The chaos on the site keeps messing messages up. But to continue:

I'm struggling to think what cemetery near Cardington Street you have in mind. If it's Old St Pancras Church - well, it's really just a country churchyard that happens to be in the middle of the town. Most of the stones are where they ought to be in a normal cemetery, and the church, though rarely used, looks like a normal church from outside.

There actually arent that many examples of ex-churchyards that are without their church. A couple in The City have churches that are rarely used, or that haven't really been properly restored since the Blitz or the odd IRA insanity. There may be other Blitzed and unrebuilt churches outside the central core that I've just never noticed, and if you've stumbled over one I'd like to hear more about it.

Perhaps a real expert could remind me of a church-free churchyard: the Dissenters' graveyards, like Bunhill Fields, don't count, and St Giles Church is very much still alive.

Hi flanneruk,

You're right -- garden cemeteries is the term that was used to describe the great Victorian cemeteries like Brompton, Highgate, Kensal Green, etc. No longer in use inner city churchyards best describes what I'm looking for. But the stuff I've read about the old churchyards converted into gardens calls them garden/churchyards, so it's confusing. I love St. Bart's! The one next to Thistle Euston is, according to my A-Z, called St. James. It's a nice little place with benches and weird sculptures, as well as a couple of sarcophaguses and the old tombstones stacked neatly against the railing, but no church. In his book The Cemetery Book (imaginative title, yes?), author Tom Weil mentions that there are lots in London, but sadly only names two or three. Before the Victorian cemeteries, as you know, there were hundreds of churchyards in central London and these were closed down. In some cases, the little parishes associated with them were absorbed by other parishes and the church building was allowed to fall into disrepair -- then eventually fell victim to develpment. But at some point there was a movement to revitalize and restore what was left of some of the churchyards by turning them into small recreation areas. Like St. Giles and St. Bart's, only sans church. I'll try to find the internet source I looked at long ago. I haven't seen St. Pancras, but it's on my list next year.

I was just reading about these "purpose built" garden cemeteries in a book called Excentric London in the Bradt guide books series. They were the first burial grounds, built by private investors. without being adjacent to a church and London was running our or space in the church yards--the Great Plague in the 1660's overwhelmed what space they had and it was squeeze them in after that. It had a good description of them, where they are and who is located there...also the book is quite funny, which the topic of Excentric London should tip you off...
Judy

How funny -- I have Eccentric London sitting beside me on my desk as I write this! Maybe next time they'll expand Dead Eccentric London to an entire book...

I've only seen Highgate, where my London friends insisted on taking me and photographing me in front of the Lenin Statue.

On our last trip to London, and staying in a B&B at Archway, we visited Highgate Cemetary one day, and what an unusual cemetary. A great place to film horror movies, or Count Dracula.

In Camden, in addition to St James’ Gardens and old St. Pancras, you may want to look at St Andrew’s Gardens , “St Andrew's Gardens was opened to the public in 1885, having previously been a burial ground.”, St George’s Gardens, “St George's Gardens is important as it was the first burial ground in London not to be sited next to its church; the church is in the City of London.” and St Martin’s Gardens, “This former burial ground has gently undulating lawns and a perimeter lined with dozens of original gravestones.”

If you can get hold of it, Mrs Basil Holmes' "The London Burial Grounds: Notes on their History from the Earliest Times to the Present Day" (London 1986) has a full list.

As you know about John Snow, you're clearly pretty knowledgeable about London But you may not be aware of how easy it is to get a reader's ticket at the British Library, which does have a copy of this long out of print book. :

Otherwise, massively oversimplified: Virtually every bit of greenery in the City of London, apart from the Barbican, fits your bill.

There are churchyards in the City of Westminster (apart of course from St Giles), or in the Borough of Camden south of the Euston Road since parish churches were rarely there when this part of town exploded, so churches had many competitors for land.

However, the parish churches of virtually all the surrounding villages had good-sized churchyards as London took off, almost all of them were fully used as graveyards and you'll find copious examples in all the pre-19th century outlying villages (like Islington, Limehouse and Hackney) that have now just become part of the Great Wen.

Any Anglican church built before 1800 with a single-digit postcode (like WC2...) outside Westminster and southern Camden is almost guaranteed to have a churchyard that's now an oasis with headstones mostly around the walls. One web source of Anglican churches is the Diocese of London site (www.london.anglican.org/ChurchFinder) The few pre-19th century Dissenting churches in central London (including synagogues and Catholics as well as non-conformists) virtually never have churchyards. Neither do post-1800 central London Anglican churches, and though many churches with two-digit postcodes have churchyards, they're often suburban in feel and difficult for a visitor to get to .

For non-consecrated graveyards, you really need Mrs Holmes' list.

My fourth paragraph should have read:

There are PRACTICALLY NO churchyards in the City of Westminster (apart of course from St Giles), or in the Borough of Camden south of the Euston Road since parish churches were rarely there when this part of town exploded, so churches had many competitors for land.

flanner: St James's Gardens in Cardington St, between the Ibis and the Thistle - it just looks like an ordinary municipal park to the casual passer-by.

Another suggestion is not so much a cemetery - St Dunstan's in the City, where the remains of the church walls surround a garden, or the church (whose name escapes me) which is now a rose garden behind St Pauls.

Or further afield, Tower Hamlets cemetery, most of which is semi-wild, and the most recently-used parts are manicured and tidy (there is a deliberate policy to do this in a lot of cases - I had quite a lot of jungle exploration to find a family plot in Southgate Cemetery).