Abney Park Cemetery (The “Magnificent Seven” Tour)

My latest cemetery visit involved a trip to Abney Park in east London. This cemetery, one of the least famous of the “Magnificent Seven”, recently celebrated its 175th anniversary.

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South Lodge entrance to Abney Park

Getting There

The address is Stoke Newington High Street, London N16 0LH, and the tour begins by the South Lodge. The nearest station is Stoke Newington, a new addition to the London Overground, which can be reached from Liverpool Street station.

History

The cemetery is located in Stoke Newington in the London Borough of Hackney, originally on the outskirts of the city but now a busy part of east London. It is named after Sir Thomas Abney, Lord Mayor of London in 1700-01 and owner of the manor of Stoke Newington in the early eighteenth century. His town house, built in 1676, stood on the site of the present cemetery. The surrounding parkland, laid out by Lady Mary Abney and Dr. Isaac Watts (whose statue occupies pride of place in the cemetery, although he is not actually buried there), became a garden cemetery in 1840. What distinguishes Abney Park from the other garden cemeteries founded around this time is its non-denominational status, the first such garden cemetery in Europe. This means that the ground was not consecrated, and it was used as a burial place for Christians practising outside of the Church of England. The fact that Watts, a noted nonconformist thinker, was associated with the area was a bonus.

Abney Park was sold in the 1880s to a commercially-minded general cemetery company, and in 1978 it passed to the local council. Sadly, a period of neglect and decay followed, and it was included on the Heritage At Risk Register in 2009. Today, the cemetery is a designated Local Nature Reserve and Conservation Area. Following a period of care by the Abney Park Trust, management of the cemetery recently passed back to Hackney Council.

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A broken statue

Tour

The tour began with an introduction to the cemetery and the concept of the Magnificent Seven, which is familiar to me after five other tours, but will be fascinating to those who haven’t previously heard the story. It was informative and interesting, and covered the flora and fauna to be found in the cemetery as well as the architecture, the chapel and some of the notable burials.

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Heading into the cemetery

While the Abney Park Trust have taken really good care of the cemetery in the last few years, there are still overgrown areas. Some of these are intentional, to allow wildlife to flourish.

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A selection of overgrown graves
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Densely-packed burials
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An aged tree
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Beautiful stone angel and cross
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The first burial in the cemetery

Following arson the chapel is sadly a shell, fenced off in an attempt to stop people getting inside. The basic structure is still there and some of its former beauty is still apparent. It could be restored, if only the money was forthcoming.

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The chapel
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The window shapes are still evident

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The war memorial is located near the chapel.

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War memorial

Abney Park doesn’t have as many famous burials as some of the other cemeteries I’ve visited. However, one notable individual is a policeman, William Frederick Tyler. He was killed in the “Tottenham Outrage” of 1909, shot by a robber.

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Grave of William Frederick Tyler

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The statue of Isaac Watts is located near the chapel.

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Statue of Isaac Watts

William Thomas “Tommy” Hall was a famous cyclist who broke the world motor-paced hour record in 1903.

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Grave of Tommy Hall

One of the saddest things I’ve seen in any of the cemeteries is this: a row of paupers’ graves lining the path.

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Paupers’ graves

I had never heard of this author, but the title of his tome intrigued me.

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Intriguing gravestone

This memorial commemorates east Londoners killed in the Blitz, including factory workers who died when a bomb destroyed their factory.

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The Blitz memorial

Salvation Army founder William Booth has a large memorial in the cemetery.

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William Booth’s grave

This intriguing memorial shows how widespread the Salvation Army had become.

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This tomb supposedly marks the location of the door of the original Abney Park house.

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The lion tomb on the right belongs to Frank Bostock, a lion tamer who was known as the “Animal King”.

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A selection of graves, including the Bostock family tomb

The cemetery is also well known for being a haven for wildlife, including owls, woodpeckers and kestrels.

Architecture

The cemetery layout is a bit different to some of the others I have visited. The Egyptian Revival entrance was designed by William Hosking FSA in collaboration with Joseph Bonomi the Younger and the cemetery’s founder George Collison II. The South Lodge bears hieroglyphics which, translated, mean the “Abode of the Mortal Part of Man”.

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Close-up of the Egyptian-style columns

There are no divisions in the cemetery separating one religious group from any other. The chapel, the first non-denominational cemetery chapel in Europe, designed by William Hosking, was built in a northern European brick Gothic style.

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As in the other cemeteries I have visited, draped urns, crosses and angels are common.

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This anchor is particularly well done.

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Would I go back?

Yes – there are many interesting things to see that the tour didn’t include, such as the grave of Joanna Vassa (daughter of Olaudah Equiano) and that of James Braidwood, the first director of the London Fire Engine Establishment (forerunner to the London Fire Brigade), who died in the Tooley Street fire of 1861. There are also a number of early theatre and musical hall performers buried here, and you can do a separate tour about those, as well as a nature walk if you are interested in that side of things. Abney Park is a beautiful cemetery and deserves to be visited.

FACTS

Address: Stoke Newington High Street, London, N16 0LH
Founded: 1840
Size: 31 acres
Still in operation?: No (except for a small number of burials which take place in existing plots)
Official website: http://www.abneypark.org
Owners: Hackney Council, who have recently taken over the Cemetery’s management from the Abney Park Trust.
Friends group: Abney Park Cemetery Trust
Tours: These take place on the first Sunday of the month, beginning at 2pm and lasting for around an hour and a half. They are free, but donations are welcome. Meet at the South Lodge, on Stoke Newington High Street.

The Terror of London: Spring-heeled Jack and the Victorian Metropolitan Press – Conway Hall

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The other night I attended a talk organised by the Conway Hall Ethical Society and the London Fortean Society, on the theme of Spring-heeled Jack, the legendary Victorian figure made famous by late nineteenth century penny dreadfuls. The event was held at Conway Hall, a building near Holborn which hosts many talks, events and courses.

I know of Spring-heeled Jack, a mysterious figure of urban folklore, mainly through his incarnations in Victorian fiction and later, including Philip Pullman’s novel. This talk, delivered by Dr Karl Bell, a Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Portsmouth, focused on his origins at the beginning of the Victorian era.

The legend of Jack supposedly grew out of the reported sightings of “local” ghosts throughout London, including the “Hammersmith ghost” that terrorised Londoners in the south west at the beginning of the nineteenth century. In the autumn of 1837 a sighting of a white bull was reported in Barnes, swiftly followed by a bear in East Sheen. In the next few weeks the creature appeared to transform, being seen as a man and a devil, heading out as far as Hampton Court and attacking a carpenter in Isleworth, who reported that the creature wore polished steel armour. The creature continued to traverse west London, causing some individuals to comment that he appeared to be making use of the Great Western Railway: he was sighted in Uxbridge, Ealing and Acton before eventually surfacing in Lewisham and Blackheath. A mention in the London Metropolitan News in early 1838, and a letter to The Times, brought the affair to the attention of the general public.

When the Mayor requested descriptions of the mysterious figure so that attempts could be made to catch him, he was inundated with widely conflicting accounts. The thing was a devil, a person, a ghost; he was covered with a white sheet or metal armour; he breathed fire, which was sometimes blue. An odd creature, whose raison d’être was apparently to frighten, rather than harm, people: he would terrify them out of their wits then casually wander away. At this stage there was no mention of the springs attached to his shoes that would help him leap ten feet into the air and vanish along the housetops. It was rare to find a first-hand account; most stories came from someone who’d heard that their second cousin’s neighbour’s daughter (or some such connection) had encountered Spring-heeled Jack.

Dr Karl suggests that there were three reasons in particular that helped this character to become so well-known. Firstly, his appearance and character evolved, becoming distinctive and memorable, and it helped that satirist magazines printed vivid images. Secondly, his name, “Spring-heeled Jack”, was particularly memorable, even though he didn’t receive a name until he had been around for about four months.

Finally, the combination of oral gossip and press interest overlapped and fuelled growing interest, ensuring that Spring-heeled Jack entered the public consciousness. It wasn’t until the 1860s that he received his “terror of London” epithet, but it seemed particularly apt for a creature that had been terrorising the city for, by then, over twenty years.

Hidden London – Charing Cross: Access All Areas

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Underground at Charing Cross, waiting to go through the barriers

The tube is one of my obsessions, and I’ve already toured the closed Aldwych/Strand station, so I was thrilled to have the chance to tour the disused Jubilee Line platforms of Charing Cross station. The tours, organised by the London Transport Museum and Hidden London, sold out almost as soon as they went on sale. We were told to meet by the barriers in Charing Cross underground station – this was unusually quiet for a Sunday, perhaps because the main line station was closed.

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This walled-up entrance was once the way to the Jubilee line

We were issued with wristbands and taken through the barrier and down the escalator. Once we had reached the bottom, a door in the unassuming wall directly in front of us was opened and we were ushered through to find another escalator, this time switched off, so that we had to walk down it. At the bottom were the platforms, decorated with film posters left over from the Underground Film Club‘s recent residency.

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Hidden London poster

The Jubilee line was first opened in 1979, two years after the Queen’s Silver Jubilee which lent its name to the line as well as the silver/grey colour of the line on the tube map. Known prior to its construction as the Fleet line, after the tributary of the Thames that also gave its name to Fleet Street, it took over what was formerly the Bakerloo line between Stanmore and Baker Street, continuing on to Charing Cross, a station with a chequered history, having originally been two separate stations that were united only when the Jubilee line platforms opened.

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Poster showing the stations along the Jubilee line when it first opened

For twenty years the Jubilee line served Charing Cross, alongside the Bakerloo and Northern lines. However, in 1999 the Jubilee line was extended: the line was rerouted from Green Park to Westminster, carrying on south of the river to the Docklands area and the O2 (then the Millennium Dome), curving back up and terminating at Stratford. The Green Park-Charing Cross section of the line has been closed to regular tube trains ever since, though it is still used as a sidings and in certain circumstances trains can be sent down here to help avoid congestion – one of my friends was once on a train that was temporarily rerouted down here, and when she told me about it I was VERY jealous.

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One of the platforms

Our knowledgeable and informative volunteer guides told us all about the station, its history, and how it is used today. It is often used for testing new features.

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The yellow wall signifies that there is an exit on the opposite side
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For the first time in this station, the name of the station was positioned lower on the wall so it could be read from the train
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In case of emergency, shining a light on these yellow panels makes them glow green, so that they stand out in the darkness

The station is sometimes used for storage.

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You wouldn’t get this in a normal station – it is used for moving things off and on trains

The station has a distinctive look that you can recognise if you see it on screen – so long as you know what to look for.

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The open ceiling signifies air vents.

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We were shown a series of short film clips featuring Skyfall (2011/12), Paddington (2013) and the TV show 24 (2014), filmed on these platforms. As I had learned at Aldwych station, historical TV programmes and films tend to be filmed in that station, whereas more modern shows tend to be shot here at Charing Cross.

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This is the escalator that Bond slid down in Skyfall: thankfully with the spikes at the bottom removed!

After we had explored the platforms we were divided into two groups and taken to see more hidden parts of the station.

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In the film Creep (2004) a creature comes out of this very hole.

My group visited a construction tunnel first – entering via the door that Daniel Craig pops out of in Skyfall, blending in seamlessly with the hordes of commuters.

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It was dark and rather disgusting in the tunnel – but still incredibly exciting

When the Jubilee line was first being built, constructors couldn’t dig directly beneath Charing Cross station, as this would have been too disruptive for traffic. Instead, they sunk a hole next to the National Gallery – where the Sainsbury Wing is located now – and tunnelled along from there.

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We were walking under Trafalgar Square at this point

An older part of the tunnel is now entirely blocked up, in a location directly beneath the Fourth Plinth.

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The tunnellers used the same methods as the original Underground workers did back in the nineteenth century.

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Posters comparing the construction of Underground tunnels, almost a century apart

Once out of the tunnel, we changed places with the other group, causing passing tube-travellers to look somewhat bemused as we emerged from one door in the wall only to enter another one shortly afterwards.

We had to don hard hats for this part of the journey.

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This is the cooling system for parts of Charing Cross station. I had no idea, waiting for a train, that there was all this space above my head.

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From here we could LOOK DIRECTLY ONTO THE PLATFORM AND THE TRAINS.

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Train is gone…
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Train has arrived

I had hoped that somebody on the platform would look up and get a shock, but sadly it was not to be. However, the guy in front of me later managed to frighten a tourist by waving to her from the passage.

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We went off down the passage in the other direction to see where the cooling system begins. It’s possible to see it from outside the station, if you know where to look. It was raining outside and we could feel the rain on our faces.

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That was the end of the tour. We were taken back to the top of the escalators to make our own way home.

I had an AMAZING time and would definitely recommend the tour to anyone who might be interested. It is sold out at the moment but there may be more tours announced in the future, so I’d recommend signing up to the London Transport Museum’s mailing list to be the first to find out about any future dates. The guides hinted that there would be more exciting tours to look forward to – I’m hoping for Down Street but I’ll have to wait and see!