Over my dead body
How London's burial grounds were transformed into its parks
Many of London's public parks stand on the sites of former burial grounds, some with headstones still intact and others merely with skeletons underneath the trees and grass.
London has been occupied for millenia and as such, the ground anywhere in the city is almost guaranteed to contain at least a few bodies.
Burial grounds, however, were actually subject to a specific effort to convert them into parks during the Victorian era.
After successive plagues and epidemics swept the city, the churchyards in which Londoners were buried were full to bursting point by the Victorian era.
The Victorians had inherited a system where one was either buried in the parish churchyard or under the church itself, which naturally led to overcrowding in a busy city.
Catharine Arnold, author of Necropolis: London and its Dead said: "It was quite common practice to bury somebody in a coffin, and a couple of days later, remove them, break up the coffin - not for firewood, or even to reuse it - and just wedge the remains in anywhere.
"There was absolutely no sanctity for human life."
So what was to be done with these shocking funerary practices? The Victorians believed they had the answers...
Photo: Disused tombstones used as paving slabs in St.Andrew's Gardens, Camden (Credit: Callum Cafferty)
A brief overview of Victorian burial reform
The Victorians' reforming zeal knew no bounds; with huge changes sweeping across all areas of life, burial was no exception.
London had continually been plagued by burial issues since the 16th century, but it wasn't until the Victorian era that these were finally confronted.
A skyrocketing population, waves of epidemics and overcrowded churchyards prompted a century of sepulchral revolution.
1839
Dr George Walker publishes 'Gatherings from Graveyards'
After being shocked by the conditions of burial grounds while on central London strolls, Dr George Walker published the revolutionary Gatherings from Graveyards.
The book detailed Walker's theories around the health issues caused by the "unwise and revolting custom of inhuming the dead in the midst of the living."
In support of his theories, the latter half of the work listed some of London's most repulsive burial grounds, giving grisly details for each.
His polemic was a smash-hit, with readers around the city taking up the torch for burial reform.
University of York reader in social policy and Cemetery Research Group member Dr Julie Rugg said: "It completely shifts the rhetoric.
"You can see how people talk about graveyards before Walker and after Walker, they're really leaning into the very visceral nature of what graveyard overcrowding means."
(Photo credit: Wellcome Collection, public domain license)
1852
The first of the Burial Acts becomes law
This ground-breaking piece of legislation saw the prohibition of burial within the bounds of London.
Under the Burial Act 1852, numerous inner-city churchyards and burial grounds shut their gates, with new cemeteries founded outside the city limits to meet demand.
While these new cemeteries included spectacular examples such as Highgate and Kensal Green (outside London at the time), the problem remained of how to deal with the now-closed burial grounds and churchyards within the city.
(Photo credit: LSHTM archives, public domain license)
1862
Bunhill Fields becomes the first former burial ground to open as a park
A neglected Dissenters' burial ground that was restored and opened as a 'public walk' in 1862.
Victorian historian Isabella Holmes and Catharine Arnold consider this to be the first time a closed burial ground was converted to a public park, though most all graves were kept intact.
In fact, many of the graves were even straightened, their inscriptions recut and paths placed in the intervening areas.
While the opening of Bunhill Fields was met with great excitement - indeed, entry was ticketed on opening day to cope with demand - the graves soon fell once again into disrepair.
Today, the site appears as a somewhat run-down graveyard, probably not too dissimilar to how it looked prior to 1862.
(Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons, public domain license)
1882
Reginald Brabazon founds the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association
Renowned Irish philanthropist and 12th Earl of Meath Reginald Brabazon founded the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association (MPGA) in 1882, with the aim to increase the amount of publicly available greenspaces in London.
Brabazon believed that the number of existing open spaces in London had failed to keep pace with it's skyrocketing population.
One of the primary modus operandi of the MPGA became converting disused churchyards and burial grounds into gardens.
The group would go on to work as lobbyists, seeking changes to the law to help achieve their goals.
(Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons, public domain license)
1884-1887
The Disused Burial Grounds Act and the Open Spaces (Amendment) Act become law
Thanks to lobbying efforts by the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association, the Disused Burial Grounds Act became law in 1884, shortly followed by the Open Spaces (Amendment) Act in 1887.
The Disused Burial Grounds Act prohibited all building on unused and closed burial land, with a view to making more into public parks.
Building on this, the Open Spaces (Amendment) Act allowed local authorities to take over disused graveyards to allow more to become parks.
(Photo credit: The London Burial Grounds, by Isabella M. Holmes, public domain license)
1895
90 former graveyards converted to parks
By 1895, 90 former graveyards had been converted to public gardens and parks.
For 30 of these, the MPGA were directly responsible for their transformation.
A number of these were documented by historian and MPGA member Isabella Holmes in her 1895 book The London Burial Grounds, where Holmes reported on the success of the initiative and the gratitude of residents.
Holmes had previously scouted and investigated graveyards with transformation potential on the MPGA's behalf, being a cornerstone of the movement herself .
(Photo credit: The London Burial Grounds, by Isabella M. Holmes, public domain license)
But How do Londoners feel?
Historically, converting graveyards to public parks garnered support, but it was not without controversy.
Arnold said: "On a sort of social hygiene level, it's much better that in the east end you should have a nice patch of ground where the kids can kick a ball around.
"But obviously a lot of people thought this was anathema, because the councils at the time removed a lot of the old graves, just put the headstones by the wall or used them as paths."
You might think that the knowledge you're relaxing atop skeletons and coffins may be disturbing, but for many Londoners it didn't bother them at all - here's what locals at different former burial grounds said:
"I really don't mind at all. I think it's really nice we get to have green spaces in the city"
"I think its nice that the area doesn't just turn into nothing when people die"
"I think it makes it nicer [...] it does change the experience that you have."
"It kind of breaks down a barrier, it's nice."
"If it's graveyards that haven't been used for decades and decades, then I would say, yeah!"
Which London gardens are former burial grounds?
(a small selection)
Drury Lane Gardens
Before becoming a quiet children's playground, Drury Lane Burial Ground was among London's most vile and overcrowded.
So many bodies were interred here that the ground level was pushed up to the height of the surrounding first floor windows.
Drury Lane Burial Ground as it stands today: a small courtyard with a playground, basketball court and flowerbeds. (Photo credit: Callum Cafferty)
Drury Lane Burial Ground as it stands today: a small courtyard with a playground, basketball court and flowerbeds. (Photo credit: Callum Cafferty)
The boneyard inspired a particularly horrible burial ground in Charles Dickens' Bleak House, in which Drury Lane's fictional counterpart is described as a "place of abomination" and "reeking with offence of many kinds".
Following a few brief periods of closure due to overcrowding the grounds were eventually converted into a garden in 1877, after being formally closed under the Burial Act 1852.
Spa fields
Despite beginning life as a tea garden, Spa Fields was converted to a burial ground in the 1780s which was designed to provide 2,722 internments.
However, with the cover of the newly constructed surrounding buildings, the rogue manager was conducting illegal cremations to bury more corpses.
When the cemetery closed in 1853, over 80,000 corpses had been 'buried' in Spa Fields by exhuming and burning the new corpses every night in the Bone House.
The garden office that now stands where the bonehouse once illegally cremated thousands of bodies. (Photo credit: Callum Cafferty)
The garden office that now stands where the bonehouse once illegally cremated thousands of bodies. (Photo credit: Callum Cafferty)
Leaving behind this gruesome history, Spa Fields was reborn as a green space with a playground in 1885. Today, a park office stands on the site of the former Bone House.
St. George's Gardens
One of the first burial grounds established apart from its respective church, St. George's Burial Ground was purchased in 1713 for parishioners of St. George's the Martyr and St. George's Bloomsbury.
After the site was closed due to overcrowding, it was reopened in 1885 as a public garden.
An obelisk stands in St. George's Gardens alongside other tombstones. (Photo credit: Callum Cafferty)
An obelisk stands in St. George's Gardens alongside other tombstones. (Photo credit: Callum Cafferty)
Today, the park is a lively community green space, where children playing football among the tombstones is not an uncommon sight.
Christ Church Garden
This small churchyard was part of the Christ Church of Blackfriars (est. 1672), but was transformed into a garden in 1900 after being shut for burials almost 50 years prior.
After recieving heavy shelling in WW2, much of the garden was damaged and remained in need of renovation until 2000, when the MPGA finally intervened.
Christ Church Garden therefore holds the notable accomplishment of having been opened by the MPGA twice: the original opening in 1900 and a re-opening in 2000, 100 years later.
What's next for burial in London?
Despite the Victorian's reforms and the construction of many new cemeteries, London is once again facing a burial crisis.
As London's population continues to skyrocket, graveyards are running out of space - leaving us with the same problem as our forebears.
London being heavily built up means that it is difficult to find new areas of land on which to build a cemetery and the existing ones are full up.
The Law Commission is currently seeking novel solutions to the crisis, but could we look to the Victorians for answers?
Rugg said: "The thing that's been forgotten is that, actually, what was sitting within that whole set of burial regulation, was the presumption that each of the graves would be reused."
However, as attitudes towards death and burial shifted, people began to want to be buried with their families.
That meaning that reusing a grave for a stranger was out of the question.
Additionally, while the Victorian burial acts probited just anybody exhuming bodies, the laws also made provision for an exhumation license to allow graves to be reused.
However, over time, people began to interpret this as a blanket ban on exhumation.
Rugg said: "We sort of slipped into, a little bit by accident, this notion of perpetuity burial, which then became the norm."
The Law Commission suggests that returning to grave reuse could help us with our lack of grave space.
In their consultation paper on burial reform last October, the commission said: "Reusing and reclaiming old graves could help address this problem, provided the law enabling it included sufficient safeguards to ensure public support."
Importantly, grave reuse is already legal in London but not nationwide, however, there is very little uptake in London for this practice - with only one cemetery in the City of London opting to do so.
Either way, the Victorians' struggle with burial space show us that we have been here before and that, like our ancestors, we may need to take a fresh approach to this age-old problem.
Photo: Disused graveyards behind a basketball court in Drury Lane Gardens (Credit: Callum Cafferty)
Built with Shorthand