Abney Park Cemetery London | A Walking Tour of a Magnificant Cemetery

[Music] hi everyone it's sinead with free tours by foot london you've probably guessed because i'm speaking in a much lower voice and you've guessed by my surroundings we are back in one of the magnificent seven ladies and gentlemen i'm going to take you on a little journey today a little shorter one because it's a smaller cemetery but this again is one of the magnificent seven so in order to get to my destination abny park cemetery today my destination was stoked newington church street that is in north london in the borough of hackney for me the easiest route was to take the victoria line to finsbury park on exiting finsbury park station i took a bus at the interchange the 106 for about seven stops and it stopped literally across the road from the cemetery the other alternative is there a stoke newington overground station which is only a short two to three minute walk across from abny park cemetery now at the moment there's a massive restoration project taking place here and they are restoring the cemetery to its former glory but um i just wanted you to hear the noises in the background because i want you to see the contrast the minute we arrive in now apne park stands on over 30 acres it has over two hundred thousand burials in here on sixty thousand graves it's now become a haven for everybody to come to walk their dogs but as you can see these massive restoration mark is taking place in construction work now it does look a bit messy if you like as you first arrive in but wait until we get into the depths of the cemetery so we will speed up this a little bit boys are hard at work here so i don't want to be in that way now let's take you down here and we're going to take the main central path down and then we're going to get a little lost inside the cemetery so i hope you can hear me okay i'm trying to hide the microphone because it is quite windy there are some crazy gusts every few minutes or so so i will do the best i can to make sure it's less crackly in the well in our actual video so i wanted to show you the main entrance here so automatically you're hit with the peace and quiet and i want to make this more of a kind of a sensory experience for you and a visual experience so i won't be doing my usual rattling on and on and on because i want you to hear the bird song here as well so this is the main path we're going to take right now but we will go further into the cemetery shortly but just a little background it's named after abny house and that was a mansion that stood on stoke newington church street its gates now as well were actually decorated by the famous egyptologists that we spoke a bit about joseph bonami in our west brompton cemetery tour he is buried there but look at the stunning now it seems rather overgrown but that's part of its charm and character in the 1960s hackney council took over the cemeteries here and alongside the abney park trust they maintain the grounds and it always is a fierce and ferocious battle with nature now it is one of the magnificent seven and at the turn of the 19th century there was a massive swell of the population here in london and people were arriving here for work and they were under the impression that the streets of london were paved with gold but it's estimated that the population actually doubled at the turn of the 19th century and of course that brought with it mass overcrowding people were living in horrendous slums a bit like the slums of white chapel i describe in detail in the jack the repertoire and of course this mass overcrowding brought disease like cholera infant mortality rates were huge and not only was there no room for the living there was also no room for the dead so something had to be done an enacted parliament came in in 1832 where they would build seven magnificent well that's the term they're called now the magnificent seven seven cherries on the outskirts of london now the magnificent seven cemeteries are abney park where we are today brompton cemetery i've already done one of west brompton cemetery and the magnificent highgate cemetery now please make sure that you check those out because some of the most famous people and influential characters in history are buried in these cemeteries and we speak in detail about them all but this one we're going to focus on today the other seven of course sorry are highgate cemetery kenzel green west norwood cemetery nunhead cemetery and tower hamlets so this act that came in freed up a lot of space for people to be buried in and the victorians took death very seriously the grander the funeral or the grander the celebration of life and the more likely they're departed will be received into heaven now the one of the curious one about this though this is one of the first non-denominational cemeteries and this one has many abolitionists non-conformists buried here um well i don't want to give away the surprise too much because we're going to see some very individual characters now before i did speak a lot about symbolism in these victorian cemeteries now this pillar here for example that looks like it's been cut at the top is to represent a life cut short and then you have these stunning urns with drapes over them and the idea of the drape over the urn is to seal and secure to leave room for the soul to escape the top of the yarn and ascend straight to heaven so not only from the gravestones do we see um can we read and see who's buried here and you know research who's buried here but the victorian symbolism here is to remind us of whether these people were life cut short the urns are a common theme as you can see now these beautiful ivy cover tunes there's an estimated over 200 000 people buried here in over 60 000 graves now we're going to approach the chapel here and i want to talk to you a little bit about this chapel and then we're going to make our way up these little beautiful side streets but now it's um preserved as a nature reserve and animal life flourish here um bats and robins and birds and squirrels and it is preserved as a nature or a reserve brother and i just want you to get a feel of i mean do you remember how busy we were on that main street but look here how beautiful it is now this church was um a casualty of a very bad fire and there was a nasa massive restoration pro uh project taking place in the church and it has been the site of um many um shows and plays and orchestras have performed in here but they're hoping to open up the church in the next few years again because due to vandalism it was pretty much a shell of its former self but look how beautiful it is right here in the center of the cemetery and just a little information about it over here i will show you what it says over here this was built by john jay actually one of the more famous victorian builders in london's history let's have a look here so the chapel was always intended as a funerary chapel not a place of worship and as the cemetery was established to be open to all regardless of religious conviction the chapel was also intended to be non-denominational so the architect was william hosking but he was better known as a civil engineer but it was built by john jay and we will see john jay's um actual grave very soon john jay's famous works would have included part of paddington station actually and the old palace courtyard which is at the front of the houses of parliament so he built this chapel but the idea behind it was it wasn't a place of spiritual worship but more a place of reflection for all denominations technically the first non-denominational church built in europe so be exciting to see it in its when it is restored and of course i'll bring you back to show you um the chapel and it's restored to its former glory now let's head up here i wanted to show you this memorial straight up here now some of the more curious graves will be coming up now and there's a lot of connections you can make to highgate cemetery here as well descendants of people that are buried there are buried inside here but again i don't want to disturb anybody just head up the steps here this beautiful cross gives us a good view all around let me just do a little swing around so you can see it now the grounds are extensive even though they're only on 30 acres we won't be covering all of the graves here but we'll certainly highlight a few of them and some of my more favorite along the way and here is a memorial i will just show you here that the names of the those sailors soldiers and airmen who though buried in the cemetery have no separate headstones in the first world war in the second world war 1914 to 1918 so the war memorial to soldiers airmen and sailors who were buried in this cemetery commemorating their part in the first and the second world war and let's just bring you around here there's a wreath of poppy um to show you i got a beautiful memorial right here in the middle of one of the magnificent seven and it says up here let's have a look again 1914 to 1918 1939 to 1945. this cross bears witness to the sacrifice of the men and women of the services who gave their lives in two wars and lie buried in this cemetery now although it is a beautiful day and you'll see the sun coming through here it's quite cold folks there's a very cold arctic air there it's bursting through every now and then so i hope you can hear me okay let's just get a little view of where we are now let's look down here now you will see the public all using this place for a nice peaceful walk through the borough of hackney so let's head down the back and i wanted to show you this memorial here to another very famous chap his name was isaac watts he's actually one of the founders of the cemetery along with mary abney um the proprietor of abny house that would have been on the site and here he is isaac watts a famous theologian and also a famous hymn rider you'll see him here i'll bring you around the front in just a second so if you are enjoying the tour so far go ahead and click that like and share button and help others discover this video and for more virtual tours of london and beyond consider subscribing to our channel be sure to visit our website to learn more about our in-person tours and london travel tips we also offer live and virtual tours in cities throughout the world you can help support this channel by donating through the thanks button or by buying your tour guide a pint or a cup of coffee links to do so are in the description below now back to the tour so i just stopped filming there for a quick minute because i met two lovely people actually i just had a good chat with him there for about 10 minutes or so so getting back to it here is isaac watts and this is a memorial to him in the graveyard and he was a famous as i mentioned theologian but also he wrote several famous hymns that are still used in church services in the uk to this day says he was born in southampton but he's memorialized here but one of the more important memorials i wanted to bring you across to see is to remember of the police force here in london and we're going to go all the way back to the 23rd of january in 1909 and there was a historic event that took place here in london it was called the tottenham outrage and it was a high-speed chase um the police a six hours high-speed chase following two bolsheviks with russian connections who had attempted an armed robbery on a rubber factory and during that high high speed chase over 400 rounds of ammunition were discharged eventually the two suspects of the two criminals committed suicide at the end of this high-speed chase but 73 people were injured during this well high speed robbery as it were and one of the casualties was a ten-year-old boy and this policeman william frederick tyler and this as you can see is a beautiful memorial to him now the funeral was attended by over half a million people they lined the streets and all crammed in here to commemorate it was a joint funeral for both of them so in the line of duty william frederick tyler who died at age 31 years of age who was killed at tottenham while bravely doing his duty on the 23rd of january 1909 and it's an incredible story you should really look it up just google the tottenham outrage i'll tell you a little more about the pc or the police constable right continuing on i wanted to bring you up here because we are going to see another fame very famous grave and i will have to find it again it took me a while to find this one actually it's in there joanna vassa's she was the daughter of a very famous black activist and author is this the one i remember it took me forever to find it here the last few days let's see if this is her grave here i'm pretty sure joanna's here yeah let's have a look i love when you guys come around with me on these little adventures i'm pretty sure it's this one oh you know what i don't think it is bear with me come with me here and we'll go a little further up i think it's a little further up but it's very similar it's one of those urns with the the draped over the top but you notice how quiet it is folks i mean it's just unimaginable that two minutes ago you can be out on a seriously busy street look at that statue there isn't that beautiful now i came here already and i took pictures of all the grades so i could find them again so you may be a little lost with me around here as well contrary to popular belief i don't know everything so these look like little headstones it's like a little private graveyard here so when i walked away from the cemetery i really wanted to find out exactly what these small little grouped together tightly packed headstones were and on further research i discovered that these were tightly packed pauper's graves they were actually one step up from a pulper's pit where the poor or buddies that were remained unclaimed would be buried often without an inscription plaque listing who was interred there for the price of one of these headstones was around a shilling and for one penny more you could have had a name inscribed on it so these were mass poppers graves in abny park cemetery actually the builder of the stunning church here look at the features there look at the little feet on his grave and this is his tomb mother john jay the builder who's responsible for the building right in the background there look at that for a visual you'll see the steeple of the church behind isaac watts let's head around here i'm looking for joanna vassa we'll find her in a second i know where she is just bear with me i'll come back to her i know i will know the grave the minute i see it it's just it's amazing how you can get overwhelmed by so many different headstones and the history and the amount of the different lives of all these people that are buried underneath us there is one coming up very shortly as well very similar to one in highgate so you'll see on both parts you take you can head down this direction or down the very end and we're gonna be heading down the end in a few minutes i'm not one that is usually intimidated by silence or quiet places but sometimes it can be a bit overwhelming when you hear little rustling you know it's only animals however you're still a little bit jumpy every now and then so here's another memorial to the metropolitan borough of stoke newington to the memory of all those who lost their lives through enemy action in the borough during world war 1939 to 1945 overtune in particular of those names are inscribed on this memorial death is but crossing the world as friends do the seas they live in one another still which is quite beautiful and all the names of these people that are buried here so here we have a little bit more information about the music hall in abny park and a uniquely british phenomenon that burst onto the scene in the early 1840s at the height of the industrial revolution and as queen victoria's reign and the age of empire began from humble beginnings on a raised platform in the corner of a public house to the large music halls built by enterprising landlords in the 1850s and 1860s to the grand and opulent palaces of variety favored by the edwardians music hall has had an extraordinary impact on british culture as a mass medium of entertainment music hall reigns supreme before the days of cinema radio and television and spawned a host of performers who go on to perform the superstars of their time become the superstars of their time all have left us a legacy of songs and stories that still inspire and entertain to this day and here are some of the more influential people who are buried here as well nelly power she was a child actual actress who quickly rose to the top of her profession as a singer and pantomime artiste albert chevalier fred albert all of which are laid to rest here in the amazing apne park cemetery now a stunning nature reserve with access to the public as are all of the magnificent seven cemeteries let's have a little walk up here just have a look at a few more of the graves along the way some that have been broken or vandalized or damaged look at the iron on the floor here this is such a welcome break folks from the constant movement and excitement of london i could actually live here look at these some of the older ones underneath the shrubs and the trees here some beautiful visuals it seems like this is probably one of the older parts of the cemetery so here we have francis emma sanders my god it's so pretty this part just underneath the trees folks i hope you're enjoying it as much as i am a little wonder here think of the names and the faces and the thousands of lives we are walking amongst people in so many different generations with so many backstories eliza seems to be quite a common name around here as well we're heading into a bit more thick underground oh look the life in the middle of the cemetery in there oh he's curious he's gonna come if you remember me in the west brompton when they were chasing me everywhere you can't make any noise because they're looking for something to eat from you so i seem to be right in the thick of it here middle of the cemetery so we'll follow this path down here and see where it takes us so i'm going to take you back in here i wanted to talk a little bit about this grave here and this commemorates joanna vassa and the reason i bring you here is she was the only surviving child of the very famous anti-slave slavery campaigner who is known as gustavus vassa his own name and this i am definitely going to mispronounce so please don't be cross with me ladies and gents but i'll do equiano and he was a very famous author and his autobiography in 1789 was called the interesting narrative of the life of oladu et cuiano her father was enslaved in africa and he had been sold to a royal navy officer on board a ship and he traveled the world he had subsequently been sold twice into child safe slavery and when he came here he wrote an incredible book that was published all over the world and detailing and chronicling his life in slavery it was called the interesting narrative of the life of olodu ecuano it depicted the horrors of slavery but not only that it also um well contributed to the anti-slavery sentiment in britain so it was a i guess it was instrumental in educating the abolitionists in african slavery slavery and it also contributed of course to the buxton memorial which commemorated the emancipation of slaves in the british empire in 1834 and the buxton memorial was named after are commissioned by charles buxton that is featured in one of our other tours in the victoria tower gardens tour so his legacy is still in print to this day and the book has been published in germany russia holland and the united states so technically it was the first influential slave narrative but it has been heralded as one of the key factors in fueling a growing anti-slavery sentiment in great britain europe and the new world so not only does his biography speak about the horrors of slavery but it also introduced people to the full and complex humanity of africans so that's definitely one on the reading list to consider and let's take a little look down here i wanted to show you another very famous grave well a couple of them that are in the area but let's have a look at these here some that we don't know so there's one to the memory of joshua kralshaw square late of stoke newington but they truly are special places and very spiritual places it may be non-denominational but there's a sense of peace you get here and calm it's truly is a gift to have these so close to us in areas of london now this was a bit of an hour's journey away from me which wasn't too bad so you can get the overground to stoke newington or you can take a train as far as finsbury park which is on the northbound victoria line and then it's just a short bus ride from there look at this it looks like somebody's most recently commemorated somebody here and people always say to me sinead why do you be so are you so quiet in cemeteries the dead can't hear you and it's not about them hearing me it's about a respect for the people who are in eternal vast and it's also about maintaining that nice peaceful calm environment for people when they come to such a peaceful place they certainly don't need my usual shouting self the dogs have a great time here as well now i am on the hunt for another one of the graves and i'm surprised i haven't found it already but we will nice to take a leisurely stroll welcome to the channel for those of you that have most recently joined us ladies and gents we're delighted to have so many more new subscribers on board for those of you that haven't already seen some of the other magnificent seven cemeteries please have a look at our other two we have a playlist for dark and hidden london it's a lovely little memorial there to emily mary stern who fell asleep on the 9th of may 1956 aged 34 years and her dear husband underneath oh how lovely they to rest together so now one of the more visited graves in the entire cemetery we're going to head towards right now here the seagulls in the back making their presence felt so you have pathways on either side i mean you can literally just get lost in here and we'll make our way around to this one of the more the main entrances as you arrive in and we'll see one of the more famous graves that people come to visit a wonderful charitable couple who dedicated their life to helping the less fortunate of society 1.7 million members of their charity now worldwide and an incredible dedication to william and his wife catherine booth the founder and the first general of the salvation army born in 1829 born again of the spirit in 1845 how wonderful is that founded the salvation army in 1865 and went to heaven the 20th of august 1912. also his wife catherine booth now she was known as the mother of the salvation army she herself in her own right an amazing speaker a female minister he was a female a male minister obviously in the methodist church and that's how they met actually he came to preach in her local church but she from an early age was struck by the plight of alcoholics and impoverished and she did immense work for women and domestic abuse and when it wasn't commonplace for a woman to be a female preacher even her husband kind of objected to her and she wasn't actually a very outspoken lady but she um she trained herself to be she's quite a shy reserve lady but she trained herself to be one of the most prolific female ministers in the world and today even the salvation army operates in countries all over the world with 1.7 million members a christian charity which dedicates its life to the improvement of the lives of people who are less fortunate than themselves now they're known as generals he was the first general of the salvation army and here we have buried alongside him some other of the generals of the salvation army and incredible charitable organization that is still in operation today so i just wanted to just read out a quote the bramwell booth who is also buried alongside his parents here he's one of eight children of william and catherine booth and when his mother passed away he described well his mother's passing as a warrior who had laid down her sword to receive her crown now another quote by william booth and i think if you will indulge me i think this is absolutely beautiful and i just wanted to read it out to you he was a gifted writer and orator as well and preacher while women weep as they do now i'll fight while little children go hungry as they do now i'll fight while men go to prison in and out in and out as they do i'll fight while there is a drunk yard a drunkard left while there is a poor lost girl upon the streets while there remains one dark soul without the light of god i'll fight i'll fight to the very end and indeed he did with a worldwide evangelical christian church and salvationist members of 1.7 million worldwide the stunning graves of william and catherine booth now we'll take a little wander around here let's go through here that we were already because i wanted to find the grave of the very famous um lion trainer actually a chap called bostock frank bostock and he actually it was a grandson of george woonwell now george wumo i suppose he came from a long line of distinguished menageries they call them and traveling menageries and traveling zoos were very popular in the 17th and 18th century and george w wells tomb has a lion on top of it and that is up at highgate cemetery again another tomb i featured on the highgate cemetery tour and his grandson took up the tradition he worked alongside the ferrari brothers actually in the united states of america for years he had a traveling zoo in coney island and he perfected the art of lion taming he wrote a book about training and taming animals now he didn't escape injury all his life he was mauled by a lion and by a tiger and he also has one of his fingers bitten off by an ape i believe so we just want to find him to show you his stunning grave actually very similar to his father's gray or his grandfather's grave in highgate it has a beautiful marble lion on top i did a little bit of searching again but we have him now here he is look at this beautiful beautiful elaborate tomb with the marble line on top very similar again to the tomb of george w well his grandfather in highgate in ever-loving memory of frank seabost stock on that happy easter morning all the graves their dead restore father sister child and mother meet once more how beautiful is that buried alongside his wife susannah bostock so when he first began his traveling menageries in america he did work in partnership as i said with the ferrari brothers but he was also a firm believer that animals should not just be exhibited in cage cages but trained and taught tricks in order to maximize their entertainment value which is quite sad in this day and age but to be fair he really was kind of like one of the the david attenborough of his time because he introduced all these asian and african and exotic animals to the world and people paid a lot of money to visit these menageries and he was a great entertainer himself so he was a gifted entertainer he's also credited with being the first man to um well to explain that lions were actually afraid of chairs and i don't think so much as they're afraid of chairs but you'll always see a line tamer years ago when we attended circuses when it was legal for animals to perform in circuses there's always a chair involved and i don't think it's so much as they're afraid of them as it confuses them but he did write a book called training of wild animals and it was first released in 1903 it's very much respected and it's still in print today so a natural showman and the resting place of frank c bostock let's just have a little pleasurable stroll around the rest of the graveyard some beautiful angels everywhere you go as well so not as large as highgate so we see what they're saying here it has a relatively simple monuments with plain catacombs and only one mausoleum your puritanism fits with the dissenting stance of the cemetery's founders who rejected elitism and the extravagance of some victorian memorials oh that's quite interesting so we've seen hoskins chapel we've seen the war memorial and we'll head towards the gates and a lot of the monuments here it says are protected by listed starters so effectively there are no more burials so much in here i think you get special dispensations some people will the lady i was speaking to earlier on say she did find a grave and that dates to 2000. that was probably one of the later burials in here but i mean what an amazing place to come visit so one of smaller cemeteries on our magnificent seven tour now i'm not going to do them all together because i'm going to inject a bit of darkness and a bit of light and a bit of darkness and a bit of light into the tours so this is just a brief little look at another one of the magnificent seven it's quite nice it's a kind of 1920s style music so here looks like there's been a recent commemoration of someone who's passed away this brings us back to our main entrance that we arrived through so let's have a little wander down here so there's plenty of benches here as well that people just come and reflect and read and you see a lot of artists here sketching but what a beautiful spiritual haven in the middle of central london so that is another one of the magnificent seven ladies and gents i want to thank you all sincerely for your amazing subscribers your subscriptions uh your response to mayfair was sensational and i cannot believe how much you're enjoying windsor it's truly overwhelming the amount of people that are watching it i personally want to thank you most sincerely for the support please don't forget to share these far and wide to your friends our community is growing and i will try to get back to you all but you're all beginning to come people are booking private tours our public tours are getting a little busier and i can honestly say we are so happy to have you back and visiting us here in london so don't forget to check out our european channel as well folks i've been putting up a lot of videos there of my trips to ireland and uh we may be going a little further afield major cities in europe may be quite lucky to be traveling in the near future so keep an eye on the free tours by f free tours by footside our european site and we're trying to get our numbers up on that one but for right now ladies and gents i'm gonna sign off in this very peaceful and spiritual place i'm gonna have a bit of lunch right in the middle of the cemetery here so i hope you enjoyed our little ramble again today stay tuned for many more to come and i look forward to your comments in the section below any suggestions you have we will be continuing all of the magnificent seven cemeteries so this is just a short brief on today abney park this is sinead signing out from apne park

Channel: Free Tours by Foot - London

Views: 53,456

Keywords: abney park cemetery, stoke newington, abney park cemetery london, london abney park cemetery, abney park, exploring abney park cemetery, magnificent seven cemeteries, london abney park, abney park stoke newington, abney park cemetery walk, abney park cemetery tour, london cemetery, the magnificent seven, historic cemetery london, abney park cemetery war memorial, top cemetery london, abney park london, cemetery in london, famous cemetery london, stoke newington cemetery

Id: Y6TUNJQowm0

Length: 44min 7sec (2647 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 03 2022