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Kensal Green Cemetery

Kensal Green Cemetery, located in Kensal Green, London, England, was incorporated in 1832 by The General Cemetery Company, and is the oldest of the 'Magnificent Seven' cemeteries still in operation. It is the only Victorian cemetery established by an act of the British Parliament with a mandate that its bodies may not be exhumed and cremated or the land sold for development. Once the cemetery has exhausted all its interment space and can no longer function as a cemetery the mandate requires that it remains a memorial park. The General Cemetery Company constructed and runs the West London Crematorium within the grounds of Kensal Green Cemetery. More cremations than earth interments take place these days.

Whilst borrowing from the ideals established at Père Lachaise in Paris some years before, the Kensal Green Cemetery project was used as a design and management basis for many cemetery projects throughout the British Empire of the time. In Australia for example The Necropolis at Rookwood 1868 and Picturesque Waverley Cemetery 1877 both in Sydney are noted for their use of the "Gardenesque" landscape qualities and importantly self sustaining management structures championed by The General Cemetery Company.

The cemetery is the burial site of approximately 250,000 individuals in 65,000 graves, including upwards of 500 members of the British nobility and 550 people listed in the Dictionary of National Biography. A garden style cemetery, Kensal Green is the oldest of seven private Victorian cemeteries located in the outskirts of London. Adjacent to Kensal Green is St. Mary's Roman Catholic Cemetery.

Interred at Kensal Green is Marigold Frances Churchill, the daughter of Sir Winston Churchill and Lady Clementine who died from a fever in 1921 at age three. Also interred are two children of King George III of the United Kingdom. They are Princess Sophia, who desired to be buried at Kensal Green instead of Windsor Castle, to be near her brother the Duke of Sussex and Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex, who also chose Kensal Green over Windsor Castle. Some of the other notables interred here are:

Monuments and chapel at Kensal Green Cemetery

• Henry Ainley (1879-1945), actor
• Thomas Allom, artist and architect
• Charles Babbage (1791-1871), mathematician, computer scientist
• James Barry (1795–1865), surgeon
• George Birkbeck, doctor, academic and adult education pioneer
• Charles Blondin, acrobat, tightrope-walker
• John Braham, (1774-1856), singer
• Louis de la Bourdonnais, chess master
• Isambard Kingdom Brunel, engineer
• Marc Isambard Brunel, engineer
• John Edward Carew, sculptor
• Wilkie Collins, author
• Thomas Hood, poet, humorist, journalist
• Philip Hardwick (1792-1870), architect
• Philip Charles Hardwick (1822-1892), architect
• Catherine Hayes (1818-1861), opera singer
• Fanny Kemble, actor, poet
• William Garrett Lewis, (died in 1885) pastor of Westbourne Grove Church
• Alexander McDonnell, chess master
• Kitty Melrose, actress
• Freddie Mercury (1946-1991), singer (cremated here; location of ashes undisclosed)
• Ras Andargachew Messai (1902-1981), Ethiopian ruler
• John Lothrop Motley (1814-1877), American historian
• Cuthbert Ottaway (1850-1878), first England international football captain
• Robert Owen (memorial) (1771-1858), industrialist and major social reformer
• John Shaw Jr, architect (1803-1870) Brother in law of Philip Hardwick listed above
• Sir William Siemens (1823–1883), industrialist
• Robert William Sievier (1794-1865), sculptor (also member of Cemetery board)
• William Henry Smith, businessman
• William Makepeace Thackeray, writer
• Therese Tietjens, famous opera singer
• Anthony Trollope, novelist
• J. Stuart Russell (1816-1895), theologian and author
• William Vincent Wallace (1812-1865), composer
• John William Waterhouse (1849-1917), artist

At the centre is All Souls' Chapel, containing several tombs as well. There is also a catacomb currently not maintained.

• List of famous cemeteries
• Poets' Graves

• Friends of the Cemetery
• 54 high-quality Kensal Green photos (London Cemetery Project): no caption
• Official Siobhan Fahey website: navigable chapel based on about 50 real photos of the chapel, but where there are doors, some are replaced with sky, others with information pages about Fahey. Nevertheless, it offers high quality photos of the interior of the chapel unfound elsewhere on-line. (See also Siobhan Fahey.)
• London's Victorian Garden Cemeteries
• Website in memory of the Hardwick & Shaw family of London.

• Poets buried in the Magnificent Seven London Cemeteries
• The Official Website of Kensal Green Cemetery

• Maps and aerial photos Coordinates: 51.5286° -0.2241°
  • Satellite image from WikiMapia or Google Map
  • Street map from Multimap or GlobalGuide
  • Aerial image from TerraServer