Abney Park Trust
United Kingdom
| Arts/Culture
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In the mid 1800’s, the hey day of Abney Park as a garden cemetery, it was described as ‘the most ornamental garden cemetery in the vicinity of London’. It also became the principal place of memorial for prominent London dissenters. The fortunes of the park as a garden cemetery began to decline after the First World War, but until this date a galaxy of people, ranging from popular Music Hall stars to the founders of the Salvation Army (William and Catherine Booth) chose to be buried here. Music Hall and variety artistes commemorated at Abney Park include Albert Chavalier and George Leybourne. Chartists include James Bronterre O’Brien, Henry Vincent and Benjamin Lucraft. Prominent nonconformists (ministers, missionaries authors and abolitionists), include Dr Newman Hall, Dr John Pye Smith, Dr Andrew Reed, Dr Thomas Binney, William Brock, James Sherman, Emily Gosse, Thomas Burchell and Samuel Oughton. Notable horticulturists include James Shirley Hibberd and Conrad Loddiges. Educational philanthropists include Sir Hugh Owen and Samuel Morley. Joanna Vassa, daughter of the famous black author and abolitionist Olaudah Equiano,is also buried here; as is the black author and playwright Eric Walrond. In recent decades the wooded memorial estate has been designated an Historic Park and Garden, and became Hackney’s first Local Nature Reserve. The grounds are rich in birdlife, providing habitat for breeding populations of Green Woodpeckers, Tawny Owls, Firecrests, Bullfinches and Nuthatch in a green oasis of woodland trees, flowering plants and fungi; and the dappled glades support the largest breeding population of Speckled Wood butterflies this close to the centre of London.
