Memorial in Nunhead Cemetery

Image: © Marathon Taken: 15 May 2021

Nunhead Cemetery is one of 'The Magnificent Seven Cemeteries' along with Norwood, Brompton, Kensal Green, Highgate, Abney Park and Tower Hamlets. At the time that Nunhead Cemetery opened in 1840, Nunhead was a small hamlet surrounded by market gardens and open fields. Nunhead Hill was the site chosen for the cemetery. It rises to 200 feet above sea level at the highest point and provides extensive views to St Paul's in one direction and to the North Downs in the other. The layout was designed by James Bunstone Bunning who also designed the two gate lodges. The Anglican chapel at the top of the main drive was designed by Thomas Little in 1843 but fell victim to an act of arson in the late 1970s. The structure, including the crypt below, was made safe by a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund in 2000. A gradual decline in maintenance after the Second World War reached a crisis in the 1960s when the United Cemetery Company proposed to build houses on part of the cemetery. Eventually Southwark Borough Council stepped in to buy the cemetery for £1 in 1975. A programme of restoration began in 1982 when the Friends of Nunhead Cemetery was formed. This unusual gravestone lists every member of the family from Grandma (top left) who died in 1875 and includes the usual infant deaths (top right). Its setting can be seen at https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/6838798

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