Abney
Park cemetery was the the first time that an educational arboretum
and a cemetery had been combined. The landscape had been laid out
with this in mind and had over 2,500 different trees, shrubs and
1,029 different varieties of rose bushes all growing in very fertile
ground. The man who was responsible for planting and labeling all of
these plants was Mr George Loddiges a local Hackney nurseryman. Mr
Loddiges thought that the park was such a great idea that he later on
brought shares in the company. George worked closely with Mr GeorgeCollison the company secretary who was the key force behind the
radical cemetery. Mr Collison had took the idea from a visit he made
to a cemetery in the new world, America. He visited a place called
Mount Auburn Cemetery in Massachusetts
and was inspired by what he found there. He then thought that it
would be a great idea to bring the concept back to England. The pair
work very closely together with the architect William Hosking who had
designed the chapel and all the drainage on the park. Together these
three people were responsible for creating a very impressively garden
cemetery of it's time. Unfortunately Loddiges nursery had to close in
the late 1850's and the maintenance of the cemetery and its botanical labeling were impaired.
Abney
Park is one of the Magnificent Seven garden cemeteries that were
built around London in the mid 1800's. These cemeteries were entirely
different to all the other cemeteries that had been before. The
garden cemeteries were designed to be a place of beauty and peace, a
pleasant place to remember your love one's. When you walk around
these cemeteries you can not help but get a sense of what the
Victorians were about. Abney park is no exception. As you walk up to
the cemetery entrance, with it's Egyptian style pillars and gates.
It gives you the feeling that there's something grand about this
place. The Egyptian Revival style was very popular with the Victorians at
this time. The entrance was designed by William Hosking and is the
only complete “Egyptian Revival” entrance way to a cemetery
anywhere in the world.
In
the early 1880's a Commercial General Company was formed who had
brought the cemetery on the open market. A new enterprise was formed
even though the park had not been formalized through an act of
parliament for use as a burial ground. The park went through some
changes after this company had brought the cemetery. The park was
then standardized to a park-like landscaping replacing most of the
unique arboretum planting. Over the years air pollution took its
toll on the plant life especially of the conifers in the park. The
Commercial General Company look after Abney Park until it went into
receivership in the 1970's. A few years later Hackney council took
over the whole of the cemetery in 1978 except for one forecourt
building. Then Abney Park became subject to the Local AuthoritiesCemeteries Order of 1977. Over the next twenty one years the cemetery
was left to its own devices and only a few burials took place at the
councils discretion to people who held deeds to the graves and land
pots on the park from the previous company. During this time the
local people formed the The Abney Park Trust in 1991. The trust
turned the park into a woodland memorial park and Local Nature
Reserve with educational facilities. This was all done with the
blessing of the local council. At the same time has the trust was
formed another group was set up. This group was called Friends of
Abney Park and was formed to help provide volunteers and to help
raise funds for the park. The group merged with the trust in 2002. In
2009 Abney Park became scheduled to be one of Britain’s historic
park and gardens at risk from decay and neglect.
Abney
park is a great place to visit and take a scroll along the winding
paths and see monuments popping out for the dense under growth. I
myself found that the park is a wonderful place to visit. There are
plenty of different paths to walk along. The chapel its self is quiet
a stunning gothic building to walk around and to look at, even though
its in ruins. I would recommend that you should take a visit.
