The story of one house in Lausanne Road over a century and a half, and of one family who lived there in the 1950s.*
Even in daylight a cemetery can seem a bit of a scary place when you are nine and on a forbidden adventure.
Now I am not talking about village graveyards which by and large during the day and even at night are benign and not very intimidating.
Our own may have had many burials but was still small enough for the young and curious to see the farm houses and cottages to the east and west of its walls, the church directly ahead and hear the reassuring sounds of the Bowling Green Hotel behind it as well as the lights of the Horse and Jockey on the green.
No, I am thinking of those vast Victorian expanses of grass, trees, neglected internments and conkers. Yes conkers, because when you are nine the beauty of the memorials and the tranquillity of the place are nothing compared to the huge numbers of freshly fallen conkers.
But to get them you have to enter the place without being seen which usually involved climbing over the high railings in the early evening so as not to come across any one.
But that in turn meant you ran the risk of forgetting the time and being caught as dusk fell, which is not so good an idea.
I remember one day late in September and a decision to get into Nunhead Cemetery where my friend Jimmy maintained there was always a huge pile to be had.
All went well until it became apparent that we had been caught out by the time and with the light fading fast it did not seem such an inviting place.
Moreover it was difficult to retrace our steps towards the safety of the outside and so bit by bit the tall trees and the imposing gravestones took on a more sinister and menacing appearance.
And it was with a degree of relief and a bit of shamefaced embarrassment that we found the railings and made good our escape down Linden Grove and home, sadly with less conkers that we had planned and a little later than we had promised our parents.
Looking back at those railings I am amazed we were able to get over them.
Now I have never been back to Nunhead Cemetery, which is a shame. It was opened in 1840 by the wonderfully named London Necropolis Company.
By the time I was wandering through the place it was almost full and had all been but abandoned.
And as you would expect it slowly became an overgrown expanse of trees and wild life, which has in turn been rescued by the Friends of Nunhead Cemetery.**
All of which drew me into the story of the London Necropolis Company.
“The London Necropolis Company (LNC), formally the London Necropolis & National Mausoleum Company until 1927, was a cemetery operator established by Act of Parliament in 1852 in reaction to the crisis caused by the closure of London's graveyards in 1851. The LNC intended to establish a single cemetery large enough to accommodate all of London's future burials in perpetuity.
The company's founders recognised that the recently invented technology of the railway provided the ability to conduct burials a long distance from populated areas, mitigating concerns over public health risks from living near burial sites.
Accordingly, the company bought a very large tract of land in Brookwood, Surrey, around 25 miles (40 km) from London, and converted a portion of it into Brookwood Cemetery. A dedicated railway line, the London Necropolis Railway, linked the new cemetery to the city.”***
And what followed were more of the same of which Nunhead was the seventh.
All of which I suppose is a long way from conker hunting on a warm September evening in south east London, but then I no longer need to venture into such places.
The Rec opposite where we live supplies all we might need which sadly is few, given that all my lads are now grown up and have long since exchanged a conker and string for far more mature pastimes.
Pictures; Nunhead Cemetery, 1872, from the OS for London 1872, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ Nunhead Cemetery Gates from the collection of Adrian Parfitt, 1998, the village graveyard Chorlton-cum-Hardy, circa 1870, from the Lloyd Collection, a young Andrew Simpson, circa 1961 from the collection of Andrew Simpson
*The story of one house in Lausane Road, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20story%20of%20one%20house%20in%20Lausanne%20Road
** Friends of Nunhead Cemetery, http://www.fonc.org.uk/
*** The London Necropolis Company, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Necropolis_Company
 |
| A village churchyard, 1870 |
Now I am not talking about village graveyards which by and large during the day and even at night are benign and not very intimidating.
Our own may have had many burials but was still small enough for the young and curious to see the farm houses and cottages to the east and west of its walls, the church directly ahead and hear the reassuring sounds of the Bowling Green Hotel behind it as well as the lights of the Horse and Jockey on the green.
No, I am thinking of those vast Victorian expanses of grass, trees, neglected internments and conkers. Yes conkers, because when you are nine the beauty of the memorials and the tranquillity of the place are nothing compared to the huge numbers of freshly fallen conkers.
But to get them you have to enter the place without being seen which usually involved climbing over the high railings in the early evening so as not to come across any one.
 |
| Nunhead cemetery, 1872 |
I remember one day late in September and a decision to get into Nunhead Cemetery where my friend Jimmy maintained there was always a huge pile to be had.
All went well until it became apparent that we had been caught out by the time and with the light fading fast it did not seem such an inviting place.
Moreover it was difficult to retrace our steps towards the safety of the outside and so bit by bit the tall trees and the imposing gravestones took on a more sinister and menacing appearance.
And it was with a degree of relief and a bit of shamefaced embarrassment that we found the railings and made good our escape down Linden Grove and home, sadly with less conkers that we had planned and a little later than we had promised our parents.
 |
| Nunhead Cemetery, 1998 |
Now I have never been back to Nunhead Cemetery, which is a shame. It was opened in 1840 by the wonderfully named London Necropolis Company.
By the time I was wandering through the place it was almost full and had all been but abandoned.
And as you would expect it slowly became an overgrown expanse of trees and wild life, which has in turn been rescued by the Friends of Nunhead Cemetery.**
All of which drew me into the story of the London Necropolis Company.
“The London Necropolis Company (LNC), formally the London Necropolis & National Mausoleum Company until 1927, was a cemetery operator established by Act of Parliament in 1852 in reaction to the crisis caused by the closure of London's graveyards in 1851. The LNC intended to establish a single cemetery large enough to accommodate all of London's future burials in perpetuity.
The company's founders recognised that the recently invented technology of the railway provided the ability to conduct burials a long distance from populated areas, mitigating concerns over public health risks from living near burial sites.
 |
| On a day in 1958 |
And what followed were more of the same of which Nunhead was the seventh.
All of which I suppose is a long way from conker hunting on a warm September evening in south east London, but then I no longer need to venture into such places.
The Rec opposite where we live supplies all we might need which sadly is few, given that all my lads are now grown up and have long since exchanged a conker and string for far more mature pastimes.
Pictures; Nunhead Cemetery, 1872, from the OS for London 1872, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ Nunhead Cemetery Gates from the collection of Adrian Parfitt, 1998, the village graveyard Chorlton-cum-Hardy, circa 1870, from the Lloyd Collection, a young Andrew Simpson, circa 1961 from the collection of Andrew Simpson
*The story of one house in Lausane Road, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20story%20of%20one%20house%20in%20Lausanne%20Road
** Friends of Nunhead Cemetery, http://www.fonc.org.uk/
*** The London Necropolis Company, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Necropolis_Company
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