IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Dunstan Close, LONDON, N2 0UX

One of the entrances from East End Road viewed across the car park beside the Thomas More centre. The cemetery is on the former Newmarket farm, which was purchased by the St.Marylebone Burial Board in 1854. There is now also a crematorium on the site, which has its own chapel.

Located on the edge of the estate bearing the same name, the centre has been used as an educational facility and is subsequently part of The Institute art college - the main buildings of which are located behind East Finchley Station and in the McDonald's head office on the High Road.

Part of the Thomas More estate, built on the site of a convent - see Image for a bit of the history.

Evening traffic on a very cold January day. A 143 bus collects passengers from the stop for East Finchley Cemetery as the cars squeeze past. The frost has remained on the shady side of the street all day and it's going to be another cold night.

Located on a footpath section of the Thomas More estate, This cottage and the adjacent building is part of the original convent on this site, though what its role was I don't know. The bricks are significantly smaller than the modern bricks used to build the new housing estate. There is evidence of a wall extending at rightangles from the right hand end of the building - the area where the bricks were removed can be just made out behind the pink Hydrangea.

Ensignbus's Routemaster coach, RCL2220, pulls away from the Marylebone Cemetery bus stop. Routemasters once operated the 143 route but certainly not the coach version! Behind the current vehicle type on the 143 route - an ADL Enviro 200 - pulls up to collect a bemused passenger. The bus was on a wedding party job and the crew were looking for the East London Synagogue - which fortunately I was able to direct them to. The bus has been cleaned and polished for the job and the paint glows in the bright spring sunshine (no - I didn't boost the saturation!).

This is the eastbound East Finchley Cemetery bus stop on the A504 East End Road, with the cemetery on the side of the road that the photographer is standing on. Apart from the bus stop with its ephemeral adverts, there is a dark green gateway through the brick wall with a pointed arch with a cross on top, and a Victorian letterbox set into the wall. Old Victorian Ordnance Survey maps describe the building beyond the wall as The Convent of The Good Shepherd, so perhaps the nuns used, and still do use, the gateway to get to the letterbox to send their letters. The letterbox does not currently have a collection plate, but the flap is still open so presumably it is still in use.

Winter snow and sun highlight the chapel of the cemetery. The cemetery is on the former Newmarket farm, which was purchased by the St.Marylebone Burial Board in 1854. There is now also a crematorium on the site, which has its own chapel.

I believe this was the entrance to the convent of the Good Shepherd Sisters on East End Road, though current road access is via the same entrance as the Carmelite Friars further along. The convent on this site has a dark history. Founded around 1873, it was originally one of the Magdalene Asylums where women spent large parts of their lives laundering for schools and prisons and were abused. The trade died out with the wide availability of washing machines from the 1960's. Much of the original convent was burned down in the 1970's and became the site of the Thomas More estate and Bishop Douglass School. Information from The Archer, May 2003.

The entrance gateway and the lodge, together with the stone piers and metal railings that extend north-westwards along East End Road (not in the photograph), form a group of structures that are Grade II Listed. The English Heritage Listed Buildings website describes them thus:- "Gate lodge, gates, and railings to cemetery. 1854, to designs by Barnet and Birch. Kentish ragstone facing with stone dressings. Roofs of slate. 2 storeys. L-plan with one triple lancet to East End Road, one oriel to crosswing on return, and scattered fenestration to entrance range. Gothic Revival style. Entrance set in porch, boarded over at the time of writing, at join of wings; two-light window above lighting stair hall; moulded stack to return of crosswing, right return of entrance range and gable end of crosswing. Features of note include: triple lancet light to ground floor of crosswing with oriel above supported by moulded corbels. To left a gateway with pedestrian gap and broader carriageway; stepped coping and parapet. A low parapet wall extends from this to the south east terminating at east end of site in a pair of gatepiers framing a carriageway; that to left with pedestrian gap. Piers treated as setback buttresses. Metal gates to all openings. Stone piers and metal railings extend from low parapet wall attached to the north west corner of the lodge for a total of fourteen bays (railings to third bay interrupted), turning corner to the A406. Part of a group of mid-C19 buildings which includes the Nonconformist and Anglican chapels, East End Road (g.v.). Derelict at the time of inspection (June 1993)." The lodge and gates are evidently in fine condition now, but for the most part the wall to the north-west does not currently form the boundary to the cemetery and is in poor condition. The traffic connection of East End Road to the A406 North Circular Road is now defunct too, with the A406 running in a tunnel below the former roundabout.