TIL Summer 2018
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RESTORATION OF WEST LONDON’S<br />
BROMPTON CEMETERY<br />
A £6.2m investment has restored and<br />
conserved Brompton Cemetery in West<br />
London, revealing architectural<br />
splendour, uncovering hidden heritage<br />
gems and preserving a historic<br />
landscape and a wildlife haven for<br />
communities in a densely-populated part<br />
of the capital.<br />
The 39-acre Grade I registered<br />
garden cemetery is one of the<br />
Magnificent Seven cemeteries created<br />
outside central London in the 1830s-<br />
1840s and is a Site of Nature<br />
Conservation Interest and there are<br />
many unique, listed monuments and<br />
architecture. It contains 35,000<br />
monuments. The 205,000 burials there<br />
include historic figures such as<br />
Emmeline Pankhurst, leader of the<br />
suffragette movement; Sir Henry Cole,<br />
who was instrumental in the Great<br />
Exhibition and founded the V&A<br />
museum, built the Royal Albert Hall and<br />
is believed to have invented the<br />
Christmas card; and Dr John Snow, who<br />
discovered the link between cholera and<br />
contaminated water. There are 2,625<br />
former Chelsea Pensioners, and 13<br />
holders of the Victoria Cross also buried<br />
at the cemetery, and many well-known<br />
figures from the arts, commerce, sports<br />
and horticulture.<br />
Over the decades the cemetery’s<br />
condition had deteriorated. Many<br />
structures were at risk and in urgent<br />
need of restoration. The refurbishment<br />
programme has restored Benjamin<br />
Baud’s original 1840 cathedral-like<br />
layout of the cemetery, uncovering<br />
hidden features, while restoring the<br />
historic landscape, architecture and<br />
monuments – including a major<br />
refurbishment of the Grade II* –listed<br />
chapel.<br />
And, crucially, the project has<br />
protected and enhanced the cemetery’s<br />
diverse wildlife and ecology – which<br />
includes 633 trees from around 60<br />
species, 200 moth species and many<br />
types of bats, invertebrates and birds.<br />
Adam Godley, Simon Russell Beale and Ben Miles in The Lehman Trilogy – the<br />
story of a family and a company that changed the world, told in three parts on a<br />
single evening at the National Theatre.<br />
Photo: Mark Douet.<br />
35<br />
t h i s i s l o n d o n m a g a z i n e • t h i s i s l o n d o n o n l i n e
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