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Where can you find a dog guarding his master's grave for eternity, an Arabian tent of stone commemorating a great explorer or the cemetery that inspired Bram Stoker's Dracula? London's cemeteries are places of peace and tranquillity, but they are also a fascinating barometer of the capital's social history. Intriguing stories of courage, personal triumph and domestic tragedy lie behind the gravestones and mausolea, many of which are masterpieces of commemorative art. Today London's cemeteries are also valued as a habitat for flora and fauna and are great destinations for wildlife lovers. This unique new guide gives a concise history of London's cemeteries from historic churchyards and Victorian creations such as Nunhead and Highgate to modern multifaith cemeteries such as Forest Park. The book includes reviews of over 80 cemeteries, complete with a who's who of famous permanent residents, along with opening times and travel information. Over 70 photographs capture the unique atmosphere of London's cemeteries and there are 10 maps to help the reader explore these wonderful urban spaces.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
26 of 26 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a fascinating look at some of the most overlooked but fascinating places in London: its cemeteries. Darren Beach has the essential qualities of a great guide book writer: he adores his subject, and he has a wonderful memory for obscure facts: if you want to find the graves of Bobby Moore, Dodi Fayed, the highwayman Claude Duval, Cunard of the Line, Palgrave of the Golden Treasury or the woman who sang the opening line of The Smith's song The Queen is Dead, you've come to the right place!
Beach visits fifty of the capital's most memorable burial grounds, from Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's, through the grand and gorgeous Victorian cemeteries like Highgate, Brompton and Kensal Green, to more modern sites such as Chingford Mount, last resting place of the Krays, and St. Pancras and Islington, the biggest cemetery in London and a place where you can quite literally get lost amongst the dead. With an encyclopaedic knowledge of both the rich and famous, and the obscure but intriguing, he provides a superb and comprehensive guide to historical sites, dead famous people and those who just have intriguing tombs. I've visited all the cemeteries he covers, but reading this book makes me just want to go and visit them all again.
The problem I do have with this book is its organisation. Cemeteries are divided into central, north, south, east, west and outer London, and are then listed alphabetically within these sections. There is a map at the front which shows the location of some of the cemeteries, but sadly there is no indication of the geographical boundaries of the sections - especially with so many cemeteries in north-west London, it's a confusion that could have been easily dealt with by expanding the contents over two pages so that the individual cemeteries could have been listed too.
I have some misgivings about the physical object too: the spine of my copy seems to be held together with lumps of glue, and tends to break rather than bend. I fear if it were carried about in a pocket for a while - as all guide books should be - it would just disintegrate.
But these are minor quibbles: I love this book, and am delighted to see that places I love are being shared with a new audience.
Beach visits fifty of the capital's most memorable burial grounds, from Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's, through the grand and gorgeous Victorian cemeteries like Highgate, Brompton and Kensal Green, to more modern sites such as Chingford Mount, last resting place of the Krays, and St. Pancras and Islington, the biggest cemetery in London and a place where you can quite literally get lost amongst the dead. With an encyclopaedic knowledge of both the rich and famous, and the obscure but intriguing, he provides a superb and comprehensive guide to historical sites, dead famous people and those who just have intriguing tombs. I've visited all the cemeteries he covers, but reading this book makes me just want to go and visit them all again.
The problem I do have with this book is its organisation. Cemeteries are divided into central, north, south, east, west and outer London, and are then listed alphabetically within these sections. There is a map at the front which shows the location of some of the cemeteries, but sadly there is no indication of the geographical boundaries of the sections - especially with so many cemeteries in north-west London, it's a confusion that could have been easily dealt with by expanding the contents over two pages so that the individual cemeteries could have been listed too.
I have some misgivings about the physical object too: the spine of my copy seems to be held together with lumps of glue, and tends to break rather than bend. I fear if it were carried about in a pocket for a while - as all guide books should be - it would just disintegrate.
But these are minor quibbles: I love this book, and am delighted to see that places I love are being shared with a new audience.
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I am doing a personal photography project based on London's cemeteries, and this is undoubtedly the best guide I've found. It's small and compact and is full of very useful information, from the locations, descriptions and histories, to the stories behind some of the famous and not-so-famous monuments. I keep it in my camera bag for every trip.
There are a few inaccuracies though: such as saying (in the text for Old Mortlake Cemetery) that Charles Dickens is buried in Highgate West (although elsewhere in the book it says, correctly, that he's buried in Westminster Abbey).
It can also be misleading in places, especially when describing crematoria. The book doesn't point out that, where famous people have been cremated, very often there are no actual plaques or monuments for them, yet the way the book is written would lead you to suppose that there is something to actually 'see'.
The maps for the larger cemeteries are also to be taken as very loose guides - many hours have been lost trying to find prominent graves as marked on the maps, only for me to stumble upon them later by accident elsewhere. The map of Kensal Green has completely omitted the adjoining St Mary's Catholic Cemetery, despite including the road beyond it!.
If these minor issues could be ironed out, and maybe making it available in a spiral-bound edition that could withstand regular use a bit better, it would absolutely unbeatable.
There are a few inaccuracies though: such as saying (in the text for Old Mortlake Cemetery) that Charles Dickens is buried in Highgate West (although elsewhere in the book it says, correctly, that he's buried in Westminster Abbey).
It can also be misleading in places, especially when describing crematoria. The book doesn't point out that, where famous people have been cremated, very often there are no actual plaques or monuments for them, yet the way the book is written would lead you to suppose that there is something to actually 'see'.
The maps for the larger cemeteries are also to be taken as very loose guides - many hours have been lost trying to find prominent graves as marked on the maps, only for me to stumble upon them later by accident elsewhere. The map of Kensal Green has completely omitted the adjoining St Mary's Catholic Cemetery, despite including the road beyond it!.
If these minor issues could be ironed out, and maybe making it available in a spiral-bound edition that could withstand regular use a bit better, it would absolutely unbeatable.
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A concise guide to London's cemeteries is very welcome, but this one is badly let down by some glaring factual errors. The confusion that Brookwood Cemetery was home to Woking Crematorium (p.35) is particularly concerning; a book on this subject should know about the first crematorium in Britain. Other inaccuracies include defaming the lover of hanged Edith Thompson (p.190): far from fingering her for his crime, Freddy Bywaters consistently denied her involvement. Jane Grey was not executed days after acting as queen (p.21) and Jacqueline du Pré did not die aged 28 (p.37). There is also contradiction with the 2005 Forest Park being acclaimed as the first multi-faith cemetery to be opened in 40 years (p.5), while later describing Wood Green Cemetery being opened in 1996 (p.63).
Pedantic? Maybe, if you don't mind factual books being liberally littered with inaccuracies. It does mean you can't be confident of the text.
Pedantic? Maybe, if you don't mind factual books being liberally littered with inaccuracies. It does mean you can't be confident of the text.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A good introduction
This is in the same series as the excellent "London's City Churches" but has a slightly different format. Read more
Published on 21 April 2009 by A. Byrnes
A surprise
I bought this book after a visit to the Courtauld House in south London. It begins with the story of how in the late 18th century there was nowhere to put the dead bodies. Read more
Published on 20 April 2009 by Mr. J. Carr
Listmania!
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