BACKGROUND

In the early 1800’s the area below Willesden Lane was farmland but inner London was experiencing an acute burial problem and had run out of space to humanely deal with burials. In the short term the pressure had resulted in a number of cemeteries run as commercial ventures being established such as Kensal Green, West Norwood, Highgate, Abney Park, Brompton, Nunhead and Tower Hamlets. These served the rich but did little to solve the problem for the general population.

In 1852 the Government passed The Burial Act allowing boroughs for the first time to purchase land outside of their parish for the purpose of burials – this brought into being the public cemetery where every parishioner and inhabitant of a parish had a right to a burial.

DEVELOPMENT OF A CEMETERY

Paddington Old Cemetery is an early and expansively-designed cemetery which opened in 1855 after Paddington Burial Board purchased 24 acres of rural land in Willesden, 5.8km north-west of central London. It was one of the first to be opened following the 1852 Burial Act.

On the strength of his recently designed chapel at Nunhead cemetery, Paddington commissioned Thomas Little to lay out the cemetery paths and design the chapels. Little laid out Paddington with a series of paths in the shape of a horseshoe. This allowed circulatory routes focussing on the centrepiece design for the twin chapels.

THE DESIGN IN DETAIL

Major features

The main entrance is situated at the north corner of the site, giving access from Willesden Lane. It consists of a wrought-iron gate between tall brick piers topped with draped stone urns, to each side these are flanking pedestrian gates in a semi-circular forecourt. Two Gothic-style lodges (built 1855) now in private use, stand adjacent to each side of the main entrance.

The main avenue approaches the chapels on the diagonal to the formal set out of the landscape – this is a deliberate move on the part of Thomas Little to accentuate the picturesque setting of the chapels and it is no accident when we recently discovered Thomas Little’s grave that he is located on the opposite diagonal in a quieter setting. The main avenues were originally lines with Austrian Pines of which several examples of the original planting remain.

The two chapels (listed Grade II) stand towards the centre of the site and provide the centrepiece of the cemetery layout. These twin chapels, linked by two porte-cochères and a central belfry, were designed in C13 Gothic style and constructed from Kentish squared ragstone. The chapels are similar in proportion but differ in detail, the Anglican chapel (to the west) has more heightened Gothic detailing and stained glass windows; the Nonconformists chapel (to the east) is simpler in design with tripartite clear glazed windows.

Tucked to each side of the belfry are located two small vicars’ offices and to the rear is a later addition (in the style of the original) to provide wcs and kitchen/workroom for the cemetery employees.

The Layout

The cemetery grounds are laid out in a near-symmetrical grid-pattern about a north-west/south-east axis.

The concentration of remaining graves is higher in the northern half than in the southern half of the cemetery, many gravestones have been removed and the whole cemetery has been extensively worked with close to 200,000 burials. To the north are located the grander of the old tombs and mausoleums, while the size of gravestones (as an indicator of wealth) diminishes as one moves south.

God’s Acre

The cemetery is planted with about 400 mature trees with many specimen trees remaining from the original planting including oak, lime, horse-chestnut, yew, london plane and scots/austrian pines. A few of the older oak trees to the boundary have been identified as surviving remnants from the old field lines predating the cemetery. The main burial areas are grassed with allowance for some zones set aside for the benefit of wildlife – wildflower meadows and wooded areas to the south.

The southern perimeter path now runs north of the area known as God's Acre, approx. 30m wide along the east and south-east boundaries; This area contains few gravestones and would have provided dense burials of paupers’ graves. This contains many mature trees which are complemented by underplanting to create a natural woodland setting. The central axis path terminates here at a stone cross - a memorial to those who lie in God's Acre but whose names are unrecorded.

A war memorial lies about 20m west of the western entrance lodge maintained by the War Graves Commission. This occupies a small rectangular area adjacent to the formal rose beds south-west of the lodge. It contains 207 Commonwealth burials of the 1914-18 war and a screen wall memorial, listing names of casualties.

The cemetery is listed Grade II because it is a fine early example of a High Victorian (1855) public cemetery is one of the first public cemeteries to be opened after the Metropolitan Interment Act of 1850.

More Recent History

The majority of the gravestone removals were undertaken between 1960 and 1980. In the 1980’s the cemetery was taking very few burials to the point that it closed for 5 years causing much local outrage. This culminated with City of Westminster selling the cemetery to the London Borough of Brent for the grand price of £5. At this same time there was a detailed plan in place to convert the southern end of the cemetery to become a public park, a few legal objections held up this plan and eventually it fizzled out. Brent continued to manage the space and in 1999 the cemetery received a Special Commendation in the 'Cemetery of the Year Awards', the cemetery office being praised for their work in reinstating the cemetery from closed status to local use.

The community voice on behalf of the cemetery was run in the early 1980’s by Priory Park Residents Association (one of the streets to the East). This developed into Friends Of Paddington Old Cemetery (FoPOC) in 2000 and the organisation continues to work in the interests of the long term preservation of the heritage, landscape and biodiversity of the cemetery.

Some memorials worth noting

Goetze memorial, around 1911. By Kelly, monumental masons, incorporating figural elements ascribed to Alfred Gilbert. Pink granite Celtic cross on a two-stage base, with a pair of coped ledgers in front, set within a kerb of granite with cast bronze railings. High relief on centre of cross depicts a pair of angels with entwined wings, carrying aloft a naked figure representing the soul. The railings are decorated with curving arabesque decoration with circles to the centre of each face. At the corners are square colonnettes bearing allegorical cowled figures depicting the Christian virtues.

This memorial commemorates James Goetze (d.1877) and his wife Rosina (d.1911), and was erected by their son, the painter and patron Sigismund Goetze (1866-1939). Goetze was an associate of Alfred Gilbert, the pre-eminent sculptor of his day, and the allegorical figures are related to his similar figures executed in 1892-1900 for the memorial candlestick to Lord Arthur Russell at Chenies, Buckinghamshire. An outstanding example of outdoor funerary sculpture of its day, compellingly ascribed to Gilbert. This in Grade II listed separately from the cemetery listing.

Jabez Burns, temperance reformer and preacher (December 18, 1805 – January 31, 1876) was an English nonconformist and Christian philosophical writer and one of the first clergymen to preach teetotalism from the pulpit. Born in Oldham, Lancashire, where his father was a chemist, he was educated at Chester and the grammar school at Oldham, which he left to engage in commercial pursuits at York and Bradford. For three years he managed a bookselling business at Keighley. His mother, who died in his early childhood, was a Wesleyan, and named him after Dr. Jabez Bunting.

Burns joined the Methodists, and at 16 and delivered his first public address in a Methodist house near York. In 1824 Burns married Jane Keighley and in 1826 left for London. Here in the midst of hardship he commenced his career as a religious writer with his compilation of the Christian's Sketch Book (1828). After a few months spent in mission work in Scotland 1829, he was from 1830 to 1835 pastor of a chapel in Perth. He travelled around the country during this period, preaching on temperance. In May 1835 he took the role of pastor of the baptists in Ænon Chapel, New Church Street, Marylebone, and moved with his family to London. His congregation at first was small, but owing to his enthusiasm it increased so much that twice in the first 25 years of his ministry at Paddington it was found necessary to enlarge the building in which it worshipped.

He visited USA in 1847 as a delegate from the General Baptist Association and also in 1872. His "Retrospect of a Forty Years' Ministry," published in 1875, gives an interesting description of the modern progress of religion, temperance and philanthropic enterprises. Jabez Burns was a pastor who understood the role and value of mothers. He knew from personal experience the power of a godly mother and was passionate about his concern that his generation would value and cherish the high calling of motherhood. “Our day is reaping what it has sown for many years. It has been nearly two generations that have sown the seeds of radical feminism, and we have been reaping the bitter and ugly fruits in our day. It is our desire that the Lord will use a book like this to restore to women a proper view of their highest calling, the calling of motherhood.”

Burns had much influence as a preacher and public speaker, especially on temperance. He is said to have been the first clergyman of any denomination to preach teetotalism from the pulpit. He delivered 35 annual temperance sermons, beginning 16 December 1839. He was very efficient as a preacher and public speaker and highly esteemed. He died at home in Porteus Road, Paddington, on 31 January 1876 aged 70.

Daniel Aloysius Maher (1881 in Hartford, Connecticut – November 9, 1916, London, England) was an American Hall of Fame jockey who also became a champion jockey in Great Britain. Danny Maher launched his career at 14, weighing 65 pounds. Three years later, in 1898, he topped America’s jockey's list. Maher was best known in the United States for winning the Metropolitan Handicap on Ethelbert (1900), the Brooklyn Handicap and Toboggan Handicap on Banaster (1899), the Champagne Stakes on Lothario (1898), and the Ladies Handicap on Oneck Queen (1900). He was America's leading jockey in 1898.

Anti-gambling sentiment and restrictions on racing led Maher and other jockeys to leave America for Europe where they quickly made their mark on European racing. In England, Maher won 1,421 races with 25 percent of his mounts. He won his first English Classic on Aida in the 1901 1,000 Guineas. In 1903, he won two-thirds of England's Triple Crown with Rock Sand. He also won the Epsom Derby three times (1903, 1905, 1906), five Eclipse Stakes (1902, 1904, 1906, 1909, 1910), and won the Ascot Gold Cup twice (1906, 1909). He was Britain's leading jockey in 1908 and 1913, the year he obtained British citizenship.

Maher died at the age of 35 of consumption. In 1999, the Racing Post ranked Maher as third in the list of the top 50 jockeys of the 20th century.