Lavender Hill Cemetery

Lavender Hill Cemetery

Opened 1871

Cedar Road, Enfield EN2 0TL

Old Southgate Cemetery

Old Southgate Cemetery

Opened 1880

New Southgate Cemetery

 New Southgate cemetery

Opened 1861

After the closure of the burial grounds in London in the 1850’s it was decided to establish new cemeteries further out from the center of London. The cemeteries Act of 1847 allow the creation of new cemeteries and plans were fast track through parliament to help with the overcrowding in the inner city. The New Southgate cemetery was built because of this act and the location was chosen because of its easy access to the railway line.

The Colney Hatch Company acquired a piece of land that was only one mile from Colney Hatch station now renamed New Southgate station. The station is only seven miles away from central London being on the Great Northern Railway's main line. Leaving Kings Cross station the journey only took 15 minutes to reach the new cemetery. This was an ideal location for the the newly formed company which was help by the act of Parliament.

The Great Northern London Cemetery Company was formed as a joint venture between The Great Northern Railway Company and the Colney Hatch Company in 1859 with the intention of providing a cheap and convenient burial service to Londoner's. A new siding with a separate station was built just north of Kings Cross Station situated next to Maiden Lane now York way. The station included a steeple and Gothic arches built above a retaining wall near the railway line. It also had a morgue which was intended to stop Londoner's keeping the deceased at home which was very unhygienic. The coffin's would be lowered by a mechanical device to the track below then brought to a particular spot for its reception. On the day of the funeral instead of the a long drawn out lugubrious street procession the funeral party would be conveyed by train to the cemetery. At Colney Hatch there was a similar specially built siding adjacent to the cemetery. This service was available from 1861 and for a short time special funeral trains would run, about twice a week from Kings Cross to Colney Hatch stations. The service only lasted for about a decade, the exact date that the service ceased is unknown but it was between 1867 and 1873.

The company aimed at the lower end of the market charging six shillings to carry the coffin to the cemetery and 10 to 11 shillings for the burial plus 1s 6d for the return fare for each mourner it work out to be a much cheap option than other services offered at the time. Why did the the service end? I think it was due to the fact that people found that it was to far for them to visit their loves. This would have been fine for some people but not for others. As a poor person you would not have enough money to travel up to New Southgate every week or every month to visit you love ones. At the time people people would have been glad that their love ones were getting a good burial and in they're grief not thinking of the long term visiting or the cost that it would entail. This is why I think the service gradually became unfashionable and eventually ended in the years I mention earlier.

Butlin's Holiday Camp

Butlin’s Holidays

A

British institution

History of Billy Butlin

Billy Butlin was born William Heygate Colbourne Butlin in Cape Town, South Africa on the 29^th September 1899. Butlin’s father was the son of a clergyman who had been sent to South Africa as a sort of punishment for being the black sheep of the family. Billy’s mother, Bertha Hill was the daughter of a baker turned fairground, traveling showmen. The marriage between his parents did not last very long and Billy’s mother soon found herself, young Billy and his brother living back in Bristol England with Bertha’s sister Jessie. Soon after arriving in Bristol Bertha decided to spend the summer traveling around different fairgrounds running a gingerbread stall for her brother, whilst her sister look after the two young boys. Unfortunately soon after they arrive back in England, Billy’s brother sadly died of infantile paralysis. This prompted Bertha to take Billy with her on her travels. During his younger years Billy Butlin travelled to many different places around the world. Whilst in Canada the First World War broke out so Billy went and signed up for the Canadian army against his mother’s wishes.

After the war ended Billy stayed in Canada to 1921, then Billy decided to return to England. Shortly after arriving back in Bristol, he started to look for work. It wasn’t long before he found work at Dorney’s Yard, which was a winter’s retreat for a travelling fairground. He started work on fixing and painting the rides for the summer fair. After settling in and working hard his uncle helped Billy to set up a small stall. The stall was a hoopla hoop type stall, the sort you throw the hoop over the little wooden blocks to win a prize. His first fair was held at Axebridge and it was a big success giving Billy a £10 clear profit a lot of money in those days. This amount was much better than the other stallholders. Instead of making it hard to win a prize Billy thought that it would be a good idea to let people win more offend by making the block smaller so the hoop would go over the block easier. This was so that people would tell their friends and return to spent more money. It was like they were almost guaranteed a prize at Billy’s stall and people love it. It wasn’t long before Billy started to think about expanding his business and came up with the idea of having a goldfish stall as well as the hula hoop stall. To make it look professional he kitted out his team with uniforms, made by Wildman’s a local business near Skegness. This consisted of a Red Blazer, White shirt, Red stripe tie and white trousers. The famous B on the pocket was added a bit later on. This made Billy’s workers the first workers to wear a uniform at an amusement park in the British Isles. Also he used the colours blue and yellow to paint he's stall. The same colour scheme he would use in the first Butlin's Holiday camp at Skegness.

The first camp did not come along that easy. Billy had all the plans, ideas and the backing for the camp but he did not have a location. One morning as the story goes Billy was being driven from his home in Skegness to an amusement park in Mablethrope. As the driver drove along they came very close to a village called Ingoldmells. At that point something in Billy’s head switch on and he told the driver to stop and he got out of the car and said, “I’m going to build my camp right here”. The site didn’t look much just turnip fields and bad farming land but it was on the main road to Skegness and something inside Billy just clicked. Work started on the first camp in October 1935 and the camp was opened on Easter Sunday 1936 by Amy Johnson who was the first woman to fly from England to Australia.

Butlin’s launched a big advertising campaign in the Daily Mail to promote the holiday camp. Billy Butlin was offering three meals a day all for 35 shillings or £3.00 a week according to the time of year. This had never been done before and the English holiday camp was born. Mr Butlin thought that the holidaymakers had settled in well and were enjoying them self’s, but he thought that something was missing they were lacking enthusiasm. So Billy came up with one of he’s best ideas and The Redcoat was born and Butlin’s would become a household name.

Bognor Regis Camp

The Bognor Regis camp was opened in 1960 and covered 60 acres being located a short distance from the town. The camp could hold 5,000 campers and had space to accommodate up to 5,000-day visitors. As the camp was being built heavy rain caused flooding that hampered the building. This made it hard for the workers to build on and the building programme fell behind. When the first holidaymakers arrived, the camp was not finished and the campers were offered alternative accommodation at the Clapton on Sea site. Some people decided to go but a lot of the holidaymakers stayed and they helped to finish the camp. Billy was so happy with these campers that he brought each one of them a bottle of champagne to say thank you for their help.

In the early eighties a lot of Butlin’s camps closed as cheap overseas holidays became more popular with the public. The Bognor Southcoast World. There was a newly built indoor water complex and all the holidays’ chalets were refurbished and updated. In 1998 there was another refit to the Bognor Regis site costing around £45 million this time. The refit was to bring Bognor into line with the other two sites Minehead and Skegness, which are the only other two surviving camps. The site was totally redesigned and was to have a centrepiece like Skegness and Minehead; this was a large under cover, structure called The Skyline Pavilion. This enables all the entrainment and other facilities to be undercover and accessible all year round. There also upgraded the chalets and the uniform was redesign for the Redcoats. In 2005 the Shoreline Hotel and surrounding landscaping was added costing £10 million the hotel has 160 rooms with all the normal hotel comforts as well as all the use of the Butlin facilities. The hotel was a big success and in 2009 a second hotel called The Ocean Hotel was opened. These hotels are very popular and Butlin’s are building a third hotel on the site called The Wave Hotel which will be opened later on this year.

Butlin's is a great place to visit and is geared up for young family's and young children. It has everything a young child could wish for and more. Butlin's still has its charm that it had all those years ago went I went there as a kid.