Kensal Green Cemetery

“ Kensal Green Cemetery had in 1844 already received not a few bodies but the majority have been interred since.
Members of Silver Street Chapel used to look with deep interest at the tomb of John Colston, a much-loved Superintendent of their Sabbath School. With the same deep interest many look upon the grave of a later Superintendent of the School at Westbourne Grove Chapel, the highly esteemed Thomas Faulkes, whose memory is still dear. How many a member of the old and also of the new Westbourne Grove Chapel have gone with sad hearts to that God’s acre. ”

“ It is a picturesque ground between the two roads, but, with the exception of a pathway through it, it is not open to the public.
Foreigners now have to be buried in the cemeteries, and many a strange service or ceremony has been held at the graveside of those who belong to other climes, especially, perhaps, in Kensal Green Cemetery, Norwood Cemetery, and the others that are non-parochial. The Jews and the Greeks are, I believe, the only communities of strangers who still keep up separate burial-grounds of their own in London. ”

“ I do not want to see tombs—not your tombs. Why should I? We have graves of our own, our family has. Why my uncle Podger has a tomb in Kensal Green Cemetery, that is the pride of all that country-side; and my grandfather's vault at Bow is capable of accommodating eight visitors, while my great-aunt Susan has a brick grave in Finchley Churchyard, with a headstone with a coffee-pot sort of thing in bas-relief upon it, and a six-inch best white stone coping all the way round, that cost pounds. When I want graves, it is to those places that I go and revel. ”

“ Mary's Roman Catholic cemetery at Kensal Green. It comprises thirty acres, and was opened in May, 1858. There are many notable names among those buried here, namely: Cardinals Wiseman and Manning; Clarkson Stanfield, R.A.; Dr. Rock, who was Curator of Ecclesiastical Antiquities in the South Kensington Museum; Adelaide A. Proctor, Panizzi, Prince Lucien Bonaparte, and others. To the west of the cemetery lies a network of interlacing railways, to the north a few streets, in one of which there is an iron church. ”

“ I found, on my arrival, that Mackenzie was there before me. He was accompanied by one of the coroner's men and a police-constable. Two men who worked in the cemetery also came forward to assist. No one expressed the least surprise at our strange errand. Around Mackenzie's lips, alone, I read an expression of disapproval.
Kensal Green is one of the oldest cemeteries which surround our vast Metropolis, [Pg 266] and the Heathcotes' burying-place was quite in the oldest portion of this God's acre. It was one of the hideous, ancient, rapidly-going-out-of-date vaults. ”

“ On Monday afternoon there was a long wearying family discussion as to whether the remains were to be taken to Kensal Green in the evening, to remain throughout the night in the cemetery chapel. Francis insisted that it should be so. Our Aunt Fitz-Gerald declared that if it was done she would not go to the funeral, as she would not follow nothing. I agreed with Mrs. Fitz-Gerald, and the nuns of the Precious Blood were most vehement that the body should not be removed. ”

“ Cardinal Wiseman lies interred in the Catholic Cemetery adjacent to Kensal Green. The Great Northern Cemetery, near Colney Hatch, lately opened, has special railway facilities from the King’s Cross Station. The Woking Necropolis, in Surrey, is too far distant to be included within London; nevertheless, the admirable railway arrangements, from a station of the South-Western, in the Westminster Road, make it, in effect, one of the metropolitan cemeteries. If the old burial-grounds are no longer attended to for funerals, many of them are deeply interesting for their memorials of the past. ”

“ He was buried in the Roman catholic cemetery at Kensal Green, where a marble cross is erected to his memory. He was twice married (first, to Mary Hutchinson, and, secondly, to Rebecca Adcock) , and had nine sons and three daughters, of whom four sons and two daughters survive. ”

“ To fill it up with rubbish seemed an impossibility; while the constant and increasing demand for stone added to the difficulties of the situation. The establishment of a cemetery at Kensal Green in Middlesex, suggested the conversion of this quarry to a similar purpose. A feeling in the minds of people that the dead should not be interred amidst the living, began to prevail—a feeling that has since grown so strong as to be fully recognised in the extensive cemeteries now formed at the outskirts of this and all large towns. Duke-street used to be called “The road to the p. ”

“ The blossoms fall and die, and the paths by the hawthorn hedges are strewn with their bright corses. The blossoms droop and die: the little children die, and the green velvet of the cemetery is dotted with tiny grave-stones. ”

“ We do not, at the present day, bury metal objects in our graves, and but for the coffin nails it would be as fair to argue that the graves in Kensal Green are prehistoric because the interments show no trace of metal implements. At all events, there are many burying races now existing who do not use coffins, nor bury metal objects in their graves ”

“ There's always a kind of jumped-up unhomelike look about a new cemetery, with its raw gravel paths and its rough green sods, and the machine-made marble angels that look like something off a wedding-cake. ”

“ Do you conceive that large cemeteries, on a national scale, will be more acceptable to the labouring classes than parochial burial grounds, whether in the present grounds or in burial grounds in the suburbs of the metropolis?—I think the national cemeteries will be much more popular.
If the burials of the working population could be performed in the more ornamented and attractive cemeteries, such as those at Highgate and Kensal Green, at the same expense as in any of the grounds within the town, would there be any who would not be buried there?—I think very few. ”

“ True, more than a half of the green graves in the Grafton cemetery are marked "Unknown," and sometimes it occurs that one thinks of the contradiction involved in "honoring the memory" of him of whom no memory remains to honor; but the attempt seems to do no great harm to the living, even to the logical. ”

“ Nothing can be drearier than this burying-ground—unless it may be some other Moslem cemetery. It is an uneven plain of sand, without a spear of grass or a green thing. It is covered thickly with ugly stucco, oven-like tombs, the whole inconceivably shabby and dust covered; the tombs of the men have head-stones to distinguish them from the women. ”

“ The light was fading and the air felt bitterly cold as we stood beside the grave; the dark clouds that had lain in ambush, as it were, in the background, came driven across the sky by gusts of wind, swaying the thicket of evergreens and the tall maple and plane-trees beyond the cemetery boundary. Snowflakes began to fall, and, with the suddenness characterising all atmospheric changes in this unstable land, a thin coating covered the evergreens in a few seconds, and lay on the plum-blossom in the bamboo holders, placed on the stone platform in front of the tombstone. ”

“ The earth was rapidly shoveled into the opening, and in a short time a mound of yellow clay marked the old skinflint's last abode. It was unlike other newly-made graves, however, for a rope reached out of it to the bell near by, and six inches of an air-pipe protruded.
The grave-diggers left the spot, and returned to their homes. The cemetery was deserted unless one believes that the spirits of the dead hover above the last resting place of their bodies. ”

“ The production of the doctor's certificate would justify him in taking the order and concluding the arrangements.
There are coffins in the London cemeteries which contain no bodies. Over some of the graves there are memorial stones, and, as in Wilkie Collins' famous story, "The Woman in White," it sometimes happens that the "dead person" goes to the cemetery and reads the touching tribute to his or her virtues.
It may even be—I have heard the story told—that the dear departed will go to the cemetery once a year and lay a memorial wreath upon her own grave. ”

“ And far down a shady path in one of Norfolk's lovely cemeteries there rises a low green grave, over which a costly white marble shaft, never without its daily wreath of fresh white roses through all of summer's golden days, tapers sadly against the blue sky, telling all who care to know that
Willard Clendenon,
AGED 36,
Rests Here.
"Nature doth mourn for thee. There is no need
For man to strike his plaintive lyre and fail,
As fail he must if he attempts thy praise." ”

“ The rooms and conservatories of the house are filled with luxurious plants, soon to be set out on the graves of this cemetery. Beauty and silence reign through this domain of the dead. There is a hush in the air, and a hush in the heart, as you walk through it, reading its names, pausing by the graves of its “unknown,” thinking of the past. Far as the sight reaches, stretch the long columns of immortal dead. The beauty of their sleeping-place, the reverent care covering it everywhere, tells how dear to the Nation’s heart is the dust of its heroes, how sacred the spot where they lie. ”

“ A sad and picturesque sight it was; from eighty to a hundred people in all, some in sleighs, some ploding through the snow on foot,—aged women in their white blankets, mothers with their children, some of them in bright scarlet shawls, boys and girls, all in their Sunday attire. Through the silent forest we wended our way till we came at length to the wild little cemetery with its rude snake fence encircling it. The coffin was taken from the sleigh and carefully lowered into the grave; then the men took off their hats and we sang another hymn. ”

“ The disposal of the dead is always a question of difficulty. If the dead are buried, so great at last is the accumulation of bodies that the whole country round a great city becomes gradually a vast cemetery. After death, the buried body returns to its elements. If, instead of being buried, the body is burned, the same process occurs more rapidly. A community must always dispose of its dead, either by burial in land or water, or by burning, or chemical destruction equivalent to burning, or by embalming or preserving. ”

“ A stylish one is a beautiful sight; the poor, by making application to the police, are given the funeral car and passage for two persons free; the low and poverty-stricken class also hire the coffins, and when they reach the cemetery the corpse is taken out, wrapped in a serape and consigned to a hired grave—that is, they buy the grave for five years, at the end of which time the bones are lifted and thrown in some corner, exposed to the gaze of the public, in order to make room for new-comers, and the tombstones—then useless—are laid in one heap by the gate. ”

“ But in the distance, a mile away, the national flag waving invitingly bids reassurance. At length you stand at the entrance of the cemetery, entering through the strong iron gates of the thick ivy-covered brick wall, 12,782 known and 923 unknown men are buried within.
Many things at once interest you. Walks lead to every part of the grounds. Trees, shrubbery and flowers enhance the natural beauty of the place. Feathered songers of the South chant daily requiems. Each grave is marked by a white marble headstone, on which is generally carved the number, rank, name and state of the dead soldier. ”

“ Âtma drew breath more freely when they were through the city gates, and the bearers stepped out more quickly over hard stretches of sand and waste hillocks set with thorn and caper bushes toward the little cemetery which the musician had chosen. A few gnarled jhand trees decked with coloured snippets of cloth tied there by many mourners, a few nameless roly-poly concrete graves, a sprinkling of tiny turrets showing where someone was laid--someone whose resting place was unknown to all save the women who came thither every week to mourn--marked the spot. ”

“ We have got to move or be content to see our effects wasted away and utterly destroyed. Now, you will hardly believe it, but it is true, nevertheless, that there isn't a single coffin in good repair among all my acquaintance—now that is an absolute fact. I do not refer to low people who come in a pine box mounted on an express waggon, but I am talking about your high toned, silver mounted burial-case, your monumental sort, that travel under black plumes at the head of a procession and have choice of cemetery lots—I mean folk like the Jarvises, and the Bledsoes and Burlings, and such. ”

“ The air in the vicinity of the Old Cemetery is so laden with the smell of death that even the natives are aware of it, while strangers generally avoid a second visit. It is a rule that every seven years a portion of the ground occupied by rented graves shall be dug over for new tenants, the partially decayed remains found therein being brought together and buried again in an indiscriminate heap. ”

“ It is more remarkable as being, so far as I can find, the one solitary instance of an allegorical gravestone among the thousands of gravestones in the vast and carefully guarded burial-place in the City Road. Strictly speaking, death's heads and crossbones are allegorical, but these must be excepted for their very abundance and their lack of novelty. Possibly, also, the lichen, damp, and London climate, which have obliterated many of the inscriptions in this old cemetery, may have been fatal to the low relief which is requisite for figure work of the kind under consideration. ”