West Norwood Cemetery

One of the first private landscaped cemeteries in London, it is one of the Magnificent Seven cemeteries of London, and is a site of major historical, architectural and ecological interest.

Its grounds are a mixture of historic monumental cemetery and modern lawn cemetery, but it also boasts catacombs, a crematorium and a columbarium for cinery ashes. 

Reckoned to hold the finest collection of sepulchral monuments in London, the cemetery features 69 Grade II and Grade II* listed buildings and structures, including a dedicated Greek Orthodox necropolis with 19 listed mausoleums and monuments. 

Lambeth Council have recognised it as a site of nature conservation value within the Borough in addition to its outstanding value as a site of national historic and cultural interest. English Heritage describe it as the first cemetery to be designed in the Gothic Revival style.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission lists 136 Commonwealth burials of World War I and 52 of World War II, plus 18 cremations. There is also one Belgian war burial and two Greek civilian victims of the RMS Lusitania. Spencer John Bent, Victoria Cross recipient for action in the First World War, who was cremated here, is commemorated in a garden of remembrance.

More than 200 people in the cemetery are recorded in the Dictionary of National Biography and these include:

• a large number of inventors, engineers, architects, and builders, such as Sir Hiram Maxim, inventor of the automatic machine gun, Sir Henry Bessemer, engineer and inventor of the famous steel process, James Henry Greathead, who tunnelled much of the London Underground, William Burges and Sir William Tite, gothic architects and Tower Bridge architect Sir Horace Jones (d. 1887)

• many artists and entertainers, including: David Roberts, artist, William Collingwood Smith, painter, Joseph Barnby, composer and resident conductor at the Royal Albert Hall, Katti Laanner, ballet dancer, and actors E.J. Lonnen, Patsy Smart, Maria Zambaco and Mary Brough.

• many notable medics, such as: Dr William Marsden, founder of the Royal Free Hospital and The Royal Marsden hospital, Dr Gideon Mantell, the geologist and pioneering palaeontologist, and Sister Eliza Roberts, (Florence Nightingale's principal nurse during the Crimean War)

• many sportsmen, including C.W. Alcock, founder of Test cricket and the FA Cup, Georg Hackenschmidt, Anglo-Russian professional wrestler.

There are also many notables of the time, such as Sir Henry Tate, sugar magnate and founder of London's Tate Gallery, Paul Julius Baron von Reuter, founder of Reuter's news agency, and Isabella Beeton (the famous cookery writer), who died at 28 in childbirth, to name but a few.