The Kensal Green Cemetary of London
The Kensal Green Cemetary of London was one of several big cemetaries builtin 1832 to discourage people from burying their dead in inner city church graveyards. This is because the church graveyards were smelly, crowded and breeding disease and epidemics. Today it comprices 72 acres and is home to 65,000 graves and 250,000 internments. It spans two boroughs including Chelsea and Kensington. It has many chapels and several large mausoleums.
Many people who visit this cemetary find it very spooky because many of the larger tombs and monuments are crumbling and leaning. This is because the cemetary suffered from substantial damage during bombings in World War II. The Southwest corner of the cemetery has thousands of monuments devoted to the lists of casualites of both World Wars.
One of the most distinctive things about the cemetary is that that it is home to an Anglican Church that is sitting on top of a network of catacombs. It is not well maintained but can be visited as a guided tour. There is also a catacomb network in the center of the cemetary which has many graves beneath it.
When it was first built the Kensal Green in West London was one of London’s most faishionable burial grounds. The first very famous person to be b uriend there was Augustus Frederick who wdied in 1843 with the title of The Ducke of Sussex. He was the son of George II and queen Charlotte and was the first member of the royal family to be buried there. His sister, Princess Sophia, was also buried there in 1848.
The famous writer William MakePeace Thackery (died 1863) is buried here as is mathmatician Charles Babbage (died 1871) and writer Wilkie Collins (died 1889). One of the most recent burials in Kensal Green Cemetary is playwright Harold Pinter who passed away in 2008.
Other famed people buried in Kensal include: Charles Blondin (1824–1897), acrobat, tightrope-walker, Louis de la Bourdonnais (1795–1840), chess master, Thomas Hood (1799–1845), poet, humorist and journalist and Steve Peregrin Took (1949–1980), English musician and founder of T-Rex.
The famous Highgate cemetery was built as one of these new cemeteries in 1839. he other five major London cemeteries which opened at the time were: West Norwood Cemetery (1837), Abney Park Cemetery (1840), Nunhead Cemetery (1840), Brompton Cemetery (1840), and Tower Hamlets Cemetery (1841).
If you are a bird lover than you must take a hike through this cemetery which is home to over 33 species of birds.