Nunhead Cemetery
View up The Avenue from the North Gate towards the Anglican Chapel
Interactive map of Nunhead Cemetery
Details
Established	1840
Location	Linden Grove,London,SE15 3LP
Country	England
Coordinates	51°27′51″N0°03′11″W / 51.46423°N 0.05304°W /51.46423; -0.05304
Type	Public
Size	21 hectares (52 acres)
Website	Official website
Find a Grave	Nunhead Cemetery

Nunhead Cemetery is one of theMagnificent Sevencemeteries inLondon,England. It is perhaps the least famous and celebrated of them.^[1] The cemetery is located inNunhead in theLondon Borough of Southwark and was originally known asAll Saints' Cemetery. Nunhead Cemetery was consecrated in 1840 and opened by the London Cemetery Company.^[2] It is designated alocal nature reserve.^[3][4]

The Main Gate (North Gate) is located on Linden Grove (near the junction with Daniel's Road) and the South Gate is located on Limesford Road. The cemetery is in theLondon Borough of Southwark,SE15.

The cemetery was consecrated in 1840, with an Anglican chapel designed by Thomas Little. It is one of the "Magnificent Seven" Victorian cemeteries established in a ring around what were then the outskirts of London, and is one of two located south of theRiver Thames (the other beingWest Norwood). The first burial was of Charles Abbott, a 101-year-oldIpswich grocer; the last burial was of a volunteer soldier who became a canon ofLahore Cathedral.^[5] The first grave in Nunhead was dug in October 1840. The average annual number of burials over the ten years 1868–1878 was 1685: 1350 in the consecrated, and 335 in the unconsecrated ground.^[6]

Remains from the demolished church and churchyard ofSt Christopher le Stocks in theCity of London were reinterred at Nunhead in 1867 and 1933.

The cemetery contains examples of the imposing monuments to the most eminent citizens of the day, which contrast sharply with the small, simple headstones marking common or public burials. By the middle of the 20th century, the cemetery was nearly full, and so was abandoned by the United Cemetery Company. With the ensuing neglect, the cemetery gradually changed from lawn to meadow and eventually to woodland. It is now alocal nature reserve and Site of Metropolitan Importance for wildlife, populated with songbirds,woodpeckers andtawny owls.

A lack of care and cash surrendered the graves to the ravages of nature and vandalism, but in the early 1980s the Friends of Nunhead Cemetery was formed to renovate and protect the cemetery.

The cemetery was reopened in May 2001 after an extensive restoration project funded by Southwark Council and theHeritage Lottery Fund. Fifty memorials were restored along with the Anglican Chapel.

• Sir Frederick Abel, 1827–1902, co-inventor ofCordite
• Robert Abel, 1857–1936, England test cricketer
• George John Bennett, 1800–1879, EnglishShakespearian actor
• William Brough, 1826–1870, writer and playwright
• Joseph Lemuel Chester, 1821–1882, Americangenealogist, poet and editor
• Bryan Donkin, 1768–1855, engineer who developed a paper-making machine and food-canning process
• Edward John Eliot, 1782–1863,Peninsular War soldier
• Vincent Figgins, 1766–1844, typefounder
• James Figgins, 1811-1884, MP, son of Vincent Figgins
• Sir Charles Fox, 1810–1874, civil and railway engineer
• Jenny Hill, 1848–1896,music hall performer
• Henry Jupp 1841-1889. England test cricketer
• SirPolydore de Keyser, 1832–1898, lawyer and Roman CatholicLord Mayor of London
• SirGeorge Livesey, 1834–1908, engineer, industrialist and philanthropist
• Cicely Nott, 1832–1900, singer and actress
• John Proctor, 1836–1914, artist, illustrator and cartoonist
• Charles Rolls, 1799–1885, engraver
• Thomas Tilling, 1825–1893, bus tycoon
• Alfred Vance, 1839–1888, Englishmusic hallperformer
• Charles Frederick Williams (4 May 1838 – 9 February 1904), was aScottish-Irish writer, journalist, andwar correspondent

At 52 acres, Nunhead is the second largest of the Magnificent Seven cemeteries. Views across London includeSt Paul's Cathedral.^[7]

The Victorian part of the cemetery is currently in a poor state of repair, being best described as an elegant wilderness; locals like to call it a nature reserve. Many areas of the cemetery are fairly overgrown with vines, as visible in newer tourist photos. Numerous tombstones lean to the side. Although the Friends of Nunhead Cemetery are doing their best to restore some parts of the cemetery it is badly in need of care and funding. It is about 52 acres (210,000 m²) and is a popular place to walk.

The lodges and monumental entrance were designed byJames Bunstone Bunning. There is anobelisk, the "Scottish Political Martyrs Memorial", the second monument (the other is in Edinburgh) dedicated to the leaders of theFriends of the People Society, popularly called the Scottish Martyrs, includingThomas Muir,Maurice Margarot, andThomas Fyshe Palmer, who were transported to Australia in 1794. It was erected by Radical MPJoseph Hume in 1851–52. It is immediately on the right on Dissenters Road, when entering through the North Gate.

A memorial commemorates nineSea Scouts who died in theLeysdown Tragedy off theIsle of Sheppey in 1912, including Percy Baden Powell Huxford aged 12 (named after, but not related to,Lord Baden Powell). The original memorial, designed by SirGiles Gilbert Scott, was erected in 1914.^[8] Most of this was removed after vandalism, and only the base remains.^[9] The present replacement memorial was erected in 1992, on the initiative of the Friends of Nunhead Cemetery.

There are a large number ofFirst andSecond World War war graves in the cemetery, the greater proportion (592 graves) being Commonwealth service burials from the former war. Most of those are concentrated between three war graves plots: the United Kingdom plot (Square 89), holding 266 graves, the Australian plot which holds 23 graves, and the Canadian plot (Square 52) which holds 36 graves, including burials of South African and New Zealand servicemen. Those buried in the UK plot and in individual graves outside the three plots are, because of not being marked by headstones, listed by name on a Screen Wall memorial inside the cemetery's main entrance. A second Screen Wall lists 110 Commonwealth service personnel of the Second World War who are buried in another war graves plot (Square 5), and elsewhere whose graves could not be marked by headstones. There is also a Belgian war grave of the First World War.^[10]

• 
  The North Gate
• 
  The Gate Lodge, left of the North Gate
• 
  The Anglican Chapel from the west
• 
  Monument to John Allan (d. 1865)
• 
  Mausoleum of Laura Stearns (d. 1900)
• 
  The base of the Scottish Martyrs Memorial
• 
  Scene in the cemetery, January 2018
• 
  The view ofSt Paul's Cathedral from the upper part of the Cemetery
• 
  Grave of Sir George Livesey
• 
  Grave of Charles Rolls

• Beach, Darren (2013).London's Cemeteries. London: Metro Publications. pp. 144–147.ISBN 978-1902910406.
• FoNC,Nunhead Cemetery, An Illustrated Guide, Friends of Nunhead Cemetery, 1988,ISBN 0950888168
• Meller, Hugh; Parsons, Brian (2008).London Cemeteries: an illustrated guide and gazetteer (4th ed.). Stroud: History Press.ISBN 978-0750946223.
• Woollacott, Ron (1984).Nunhead Notables: some of the interesting and important men and women buried in London's Nunhead Cemetery. London: Friends of Nunhead Cemetery.ISBN 0950888117.
• Woollacott, Ron (2002).Ron Woollacott's Nunhead Notables: a biographical list of notable men and women buried in London's Nunhead Cemetery of All Saints. London: Friends of Nunhead Cemetery.ISBN 0953919439.
• Woollacott, Ron (2003).The Victorian Catacombs at Nunhead: a short history of the Chapel Catacombs, Shaft Catacombs and the Eastern Catacomb in the Nunhead Cemetery of All Saints, Linden Grove, London, SE15. London: Maureen and Ron Woollacott.ISBN 0952614251.
• Woollacott, Ron (2010).Investors in Death: the story of Nunhead Cemetery and the London Cemetery Company and its successors. London: Friends of Nunhead Cemetery.ISBN 978-0953919482.
• Woollacott, Ron; Burford, Michèle Louise (2014).Buried at Nunhead: Nunhead Notables: Volume 3. London: Friends of Nunhead Cemetery.ISBN 978-0956987426.
• Woollacott, Ron; Burford, Michèle Louise (2018).Buried at Nunhead: Nunhead Notables: Volume 4. London: Friends of Nunhead Cemetery.ISBN 978-0956987440.
• Woollacott, Ron; Burford, Michèle Louise (2018).The enigmatic Mr Peek Stevens or The Great Vance: the life and career of a Great Victorian music-hall luminary buried at Nunhead. London: Friends of Nunhead Cemetery.ISBN 978-0956987433.
• Zisenis, Marcus,Nunhead Cemetery, London, United Kingdom: a case study of the assessment of the nature conservation value of an urban woodland and associated habitats, M.Sc. in Conservation dissertation, University College London, University of London, 1993,unpublishedArchived 28 October 2020 at theWayback Machine.

Wikimedia Commons has media related toNunhead cemetery.

• Friends of Nunhead Cemetery website
• Aerial view from 1939, from the English Heritage "Britain from Above" archive

The cemetery is easily reached with public transport via local buses and National Rail:

• Bus: 78, 343 and 484 all have stops nearby
• Train: TheNunhead railway station is close by.

• Cemeteries in London
• Parks and open spaces in the London Borough of Southwark
• Burials at Nunhead Cemetery
• Local nature reserves in Greater London
• Nature reserves in the London Borough of Southwark
• Anglican cemeteries in the United Kingdom
• Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries in England
• Nunhead
• Grade II* listed parks and gardens in London
• Cemeteries established in the 1840s
• 1840 establishments in England

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