An appeal is being launched for a £6.2m project to restore a beautiful Victorian cemetery where, among the decaying tombstones, admirers of the English suffragette movement and the work of Beatrix Potter may spot some familiar names.
Mr Nutkins, Mr McGregor, Mr Brock, Mr Tod, a gentleman called Jeremiah Fisher and even one Peter Rabbett all have memorials or are known to have been buried in Brompton cemetery, which is also the last resting place of Emmeline Pankhurst. Potter’s childhood home in London was nearby in The Boltons.
The appeal was launched on Tuesday, the eve of Armistice Day, because 12 Victoria Cross holders and 2,625 former Chelsea Pensioners are also among the 205,000 people buried there. Part of the cemetery, with 289 first world war and 79 second world war Commonwealth service personnel, is maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
Although the gentle decay and lush growth are a romantic vision that has attracted many film-makers, many of the buildings and structures are in urgent need of conservation work, including the domed central chapel, colonnades and the catacombs below them. The niches did not sell as well as the Victorian private developers had hoped, and the cemetery, which opened in 1840, quickly got into financial difficulties.
The cemetery is unique in having been run for the past 60 years by the Royal Parks, which took it over almost a century after the government bought it from the private shareholders. Brompton was one of the “magnificent seven” giant cemeteries built in what were then London’s outer suburbs, when the medieval churchyards were full and seen as a health hazard. It was one of the earliest garden cemeteries, designed as a place for the public to stroll.
The Royal Parks Foundation, which raises funds for the parks, hopes to raise £500,000 from the public and acquire most of the rest from Heritage Lottery grants. Sara Lom, chief executive of the foundation, said that without the conservation work, “we will lose vital connections to the past and the stories of the people buried there”.
The cemetery features in many films including GoldenEye starring Pierce Brosnan as James Bond, and Rowan Atkinson’s 007 spoof Johnny English, as well as Stormbreaker, the screen adaptation of the Bond-esque boy spy Alex Rider.
Other notable burials include Fanny Brawne, the beloved of the poet John Keats before his death from TB aged 25; and a more recent muse, Henrietta Moraes, who was painted by Francis Bacon and Maggi Hambling.
