East Finchley Cemetery

Chapel at East Finchley Cemetery

East Finchley Cemetery is a cemetery and crematorium in East End Road, East Finchley in the London Borough of Barnet. The facilities are owned and managed by the City of Westminster.^[1]

History and characteristics

The St Marylebone Burial Board purchased 47 acres (0.19 km²) of Newmarket Farm in 1854;^[1] and the cemetery, then known as St Marylebone Cemetery, was laid out by architects Barnet & Brick Ltd. the following year with an Anglican Grade II listed chapel.^[2] Principal features are two Lebanon Cedar trees planted on the front lawn. The crematorium was opened in 1937.^[1]

Due to local government reorganisation, the cemetery was managed by the Metropolitan Borough of St Marylebone – from 1900; and became the responsibility of the City of Westminster in 1965, when the cemetery became known by its current name. The cemetery contains about 22,000 interments; and remains open for burials.^[1]

The cemetery was awarded a Green Flag Award in 2007, 2008 and 2009.^[1] It is also a Site of Local Importance for Nature Conservation.^[3][4]

The nearest London Underground station is East Finchley, on the Northern line.

The cemetery became a point of controversy in the early nineties when the then Leader of Westminster City Council and Councillor Hartley wanted the Cemetery to be sold. The cemetery also included a considerable amount of land being used at the time for plant propagation for horticultural use throughout the City of Westminster; it also provided housing for the Cemetery Keeper. After much political argument at Council Meetings and against the advice of the Chief Officers concerned, the Cemetery was sold for three pence.

Within a short period of time the cemetery was then sold by a Westminster estate agent for one million pounds. It was then sold on to an off-shore company for three million pounds. How the management of burials came back to W.C.C. is not known.

The cemetery contains five structures listed on the National Heritage List for England. The monuments to Harry Ripley,^[5] Thomas Tate,^[6] Peter Nicol Russell,^[7] and the mausoleum of Algernon Borthwick, 1st Baron Glenesk and his wife and son are all listed Grade II,^[8] as is the crematorium and chapel.^[9]

Notable burials

Leopold Stokowski's grave at East Finchley Cemetery

• Melanie Appleby – one half of pop duo Mel and Kim
• Jeremy Beadle - TV presenter (cremated here,^[10] buried Highgate Cemetery)
• Sir Henry Bishop – Professor of Music at Oxford and operatic composer^[1]
• Keith Blakelock – Police Constable murdered in Tottenham riot
• Algernon Borthwick, 1st Baron Glenesk – Memorial chapel and Mausoleum^[1]
• Sir Austen Chamberlain – Foreign Secretary, recipient of Nobel Peace Prize, son of Joseph Chamberlain and brother of Neville Chamberlain^[1]
• Harry Champion – Music Hall Singer
• Robert Donat – Actor^[1]
• Matthew Garber – Actor
• William Gowland - Engineer and archaeologist who for many years lived in Japan
• Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe – Founder of the Daily Mail^[1]
• Sir Robert Harmsworth – Newspaper Publisher with a memorial by Edwin Lutyens^[1]
• Harold Harrison - England rugby union international
• Sir George Hayter – Queen Victoria’s principal painter in ordinary^[1]
• Max Herrmann-Neisse - exiled German poet and novelist ^[11]
• Thomas Henry Huxley – Scientist^[1]
• Sidney Paget - Illustrator of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories
• Wendy Richard - Actress, previously cremated Golders Green Crematorium^[12]
• Heath Robinson – Artist and cartoonist^[1]
• Gaynor Rowlands – Actress and Singer
• Thomas Stevens – Cyclist, the first one to circle the globe by bicycle^[1]
• Henry Charles Stephens – Ink magnate, philanthropist and local MP
• Marie Studholme – Actress and Singer
• Leopold Stokowski – Conductor^[1]
• William Bernhardt Tegetmeier - English naturalist, bee keeper and friend of Charles Darwin
• Little Tich – Music Hall singer and dancer.
• George Walters – Sergeant in the 49th Foot who won the Victoria Cross at the Battle of Inkermann in 1854^[1]
• Kenneth Williams - Actor and comedian (cremated).^[13]
• Sir Arthur Worley - President, British Insurance Association ^[14]

War graves

There are 75 Commonwealth service war burials of World War I in the cemetery, most in the War Graves plot in the cemetery's north-west corner that was set aside for military burials in 1916, and 79 of World War II (including two unidentified British soldiers). A Screen Wall memorial, behind the Cross of Sacrifice, records the names of the 20 Second World War casualties who were cremated at the St Marylebone Crematorium. There are also special memorials to eight World War I servicemen whose graves could not be marked by headstones.^[15]

See also

• Nature reserves in Barnet
• St Pancras and Islington Cemetery
• Westminster cemeteries scandal

Gallery

• 

  Monument to Sir Thomas and Esther Tate

• 

  The Glenesk Mausoleum

• 

  Monument to Harry Ripley

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to East Finchley Cemetery.

• Official website
• War Graves (Commonwealth War Graves Commission)

Coordinates: 51°35′31″N 0°11′02″W / 51.592°N 0.184°W / 51.592; -0.184