St Leonard's Churchyard, Streatham

 St Leonard's Churchyard, Streatham

Visited December 2020

This churchyard is right on Streatham High Street, and when I lived nearby over a decade ago I used to walk past it on a weekly basis but never dropped in. So this winter, while tackling part of the Capital Ring from Crystal Palace to Streatham I took a detour at the end to come and have a look. 

It's not a very large churchyard, although it does go all the way round and contains a number of very old monuments which surprised me given that land here must be at a premium. 

The church mainly dates from the 1830s and 40s, although a few parts of the tower are mid-14th century. Inside the church are some historic monuments, but this being the time of Covid it wasn't open to visitors.

In the churchyard most of the monuments are 18th and 19th century, with some of the early ones having memento mori on them. My personal favourite is the 1826 chest tomb of George and Elizabeth Abell, with a splendid skull on one end and inscriptions, with other skulls, on the sides. There is some damage to chest tombs at the back of the church, and a few monuments (including the Abell monument) are on the Heritage at Risk Register. Hopefully something can be done to stabilise and preserve them.

The Abell monument

side of the Abell monument