West Norwood Cemetery

West Norwood Cemetery 

Opened 1837 

West Norwood Cemetery  Began its life in 1836 when William IV was king of England. For those of you have read my other blog post that I have done before will know that the church yards at that time in history were becoming overcrowded. So it was decide to build new cemeteries out in the suburbs of the city. The Magnificent Seven cemeteries were build over the next ten to fifteen years to resolve this problem which West Norwood is one of them. West Norwood Cemetery is an 40 acre site and opened its gates 1837. The cemetery is also known as the South Metropolitan Cemetery and was one of the first private landscape cemetery of its kind. The ground was consecrated by Bishop of Winchester on 7^th December 1837 and burials started soon afterwards. The cemetery was designed by William Tite who was a director of the cemetery company and he designed all the landscaping and some of the monuments that are still there today. The cemetery was the first cemetery in the country to be be designed in the new Gothic style which became very popular in the mid 1800's.

The cemetery was built on an ancient woodland called The Great North Wood which is how Norwood got its name. The trees in on the land were cleared for the cemetery but William Tite decided to keep some of them and in 2005 a survey of the trees in the cemetery. This survey found that there were fifteen oaks that predated the opening of the cemetery and one of them dated as far back has 1540-1640. There was also a maple and an ash tree as well.

The original site included two Gothic chapels which were place at the crest of the hill which over look the cemetery. There was consecrated chapel that faced west. The entrance had two octagonal towers, and cloisters spanning over the Anglican catacombs. Just to the north was a Dissenters' chapel, which had a north facing entrance that had cloisters over its unconsecrated catacombs. During the WWII both chapels were damaged by V1 flying bombs. After the war the Episcopal was flattened and a memorial garden replace it covering its catacombs forever. The main office at the front of the cemetery was also damaged and was rebuilt in a more sympathetic style to its Gothic roots.

In the 1960s the cemetery was became neglected and overgrown with vegetation. Lambeth Council brought the site and which a 'lawn clearance' programe which resulting in the removal of over 10,000 memorials. The local council is working very hard to bring the cemetery back to its form glory. This has not been an easy task as the council wanted to sell the old graves that were over 75 years old. This would be so that that people of West Norwood could be buried in the cemetery. This was not to be the case as in 1994 a court ruled that council could not do this, has the cemetery was originally private and not a municipal cemetery, it would be illegal.

The cemetery to day is a very nice place to visit and lovely to look around. I hope you will enjoy the images that I have took of the cemetery's monuments.

Disneyland Paris

Disneyland Paris

 

Disneyland Paris has been open for twenty years now and is still going strong. There was a plan to build a European Disneyland park as far back has1975. That was only nine years after Walt Disney died. It was considered that Britain, Spain, Italy and France would be the most likely place to build the park. Eventually France was chosen to be the best place to have the park built. This was because France had expansive flat land that would make it suitable for the park. The site in question was Mar-la-Valli it was close to Paris and very central within western Europe. This meant that the location was only four hours drive from an estimated 68 million visitors and only two hours flight from another potential 300 million visitors.
 

It would take another tens years before anything really started to move on. Then an agreement was draw up and signed by Mr Michael Eisner and the French government in 1985. Then a Mr Robert Fitzpatrick was appointed as the President of Euro Disney and the park started to take shape has the first 2,000 hectares started to be constructed in August 1988. Then in 1990 Espace Euro Disney was opened to provide the public with information on the park and a year later a casting centre was open to start recruiting the staff for the park.

Disneyland Paris opened its doors to the public on April 12^th 1992. The opening day was not a big success failing to reach the expected half million visitors. Instead only 50,000 visitors actually turned up on the first day. The company where very disappointed with these figures. The first part of the park complex had over run its budget massively, with the final bill being a whopping 22 million French Francs. The fact that over the next six to eight months the park failed to reach its targets for visitors. The park was receiving 25,000 visitors a day which was far short of its predicted figures of 60,000 visitors a day. This lead to the stock price of Euro Disney falling sharply almost wiping a third of its value. The European recession of 1992 did not help matters. This lead the company into some serious financial troubles. The fact at the time the very cheap dollar meant that people were being persuading to go to the Florida to see the original Walt Disney World. The park carried on losing money over the next couple of years.

 
The company's money problems kept on growing and by the beginning of 1994 EuroDisney was on the verge of bankruptcy and a series of crisis talks took place between the banks and shareholders. The Disneyland team had to try and convince the banks to restructure the loans or risk lose all the money they had invested in the park. The banks would be left with a bankrupt theme park and worthless real estate. This carried on until the banks finally agreed to Disney’s terms on March 14^th 1994. The banks wrote off the next two years of interest payments and the Walt Disney Company wrote off 210 million dollars of services bills. In the summer of 1994 the park started to turn its self around and from August onwards the parks hotels started to become fully booked. In October that year the park change its name from EuroDisney to Disneyland Paris. The park then went on to open new rides and in 1995 the park made its first profit of 22 million GBP. Disneyland Paris is now celebrating its twenty year and all those money worries are far behind them.

I went there earlier this year and thou it was cold and damp the place has a very magical feel about it. The place is great to take your kids, grandchildren or your love ones. Go there and relive your childhood has you walk around the park. The enchanted castle is a must see for anyone you have seen this castle on everything that is Disney, but to see it in real life is something else. I would recommend to anyone to visit Disneyland Paris it is a wonderful place.

Kensal Green Cemetery

  Kensal Green Cemetery

Opened January 1833

KensalGreen Cemetery was the first commercial cemetery in London. There was a need for larger cemeteries at the time has the population in the cities have expanded and all the normal burial grounds were become full to the brim. In 1832 parliament passed a bill that set the way for new cemeteries to be build around London. These cemeteries would become the magnificence seven which Kensal Green was the first one of them to be built.

The General Cemetery Company was formed and had purchased the land at Kensal Green in 1831 in anticipation of the bill being passed. They then promoted a competition for someone to design the cemetery. There was 46 entrants to the competition and the winner was Mr Henry EdwardKendall (1776-1875). Kendall's wining design was in a Gothic style but it was a neo-classical Greek Revival Style that was build. It was the chairman of the General Cemetery Company who preferred the Greek Style, He ask the companies surveyor a Mr John Griffith to draw up new designs and it was his designs that were built and what you see today.

The cemetery is 54 acres in size and was originally divided up into an Anglican section 39 acres and Non-conformists section 15 acres. The small nonconformist section is oval in shape and has a neo-classicalchapel with catacombs and is at the eastern end of the cemetery. In the western part of the cemetery there is a very dominate Anglican chapel that is set upon a terrace. This chapel was built with catacombs beneath it. The chapel had a hydraulic lift for easy lowering of the coffins down below.

There are three separate catacombs at Kensal Green there were intended for lead-sealed coffins that were triple-shelled. The catacomb under the north terrace is now sealed forever and the catacomb under the nonconformist chapel was damage during the 2^ndworld war and is also close and sealed. The only one that is still in operation is the catacomb under the Anglican chapel which is in the center of the cemetery. The catacomb has space for 4000 deposits and has vaults for family groups. Burial within these catacombs were far more expensive than being buried up above in a plot. These catacombs became popular with the unmarried and childless couples who have no family plots else where. The catacombs were more expensive in the begin but that was just a one off payment that cover the whole funeral. Where as if you were buried up above after the funeral cost you would have to spend more cash on a monument or mausoleum that could be very expensive but this was the Victorian way.

The cemetery at Kensal Green is a very quiet place to have a walk around and grab your thoughts. It also has some very fine monuments to look at. I would recommend it to any tourist to go and have a look around and see what it has to offer. It also so has the effect of transporting you back to the Victorian times as if by magic you get a real sense of what the Victorians were about.