Abney Park Cemetery, London

Abney Park Cemetery, London

Visited May 2012

Abney Park Cemetery, in Stoke Newington, London Borough of Hackney, is one of the 'Magnificent Seven' Victorian garden cemeteries. The entrance is right on Stoke Newington High Street, and is quite easy to walk past. But once through the Egyptian style entrance gates, an overgrown wilderness awaits - it's managed for access, but some parts feel like they've never been seen before!

Opened for burials in 1840, the cemetery was created as a non-denominational, or Dissenters, cemetery, for the burial of non-Church of England worshippers. Those buried here include the founder of the Salvation Army, William Booth. In the midst of the cemetery is a non-denomination chapel, now sadly in a state of disrepair.

The cemetery was created on land which had belonged to the estates of Fleetwood House and Abney House, and was laid out not just as a cemetery, but as an arboretum with over 2500 varieties of plants and trees. Now, the cemetery is closed to burials and it is run as a Local Nature Reserve.