This page is simply for interesting news I've found about the London Cemeteries and cemeteries around the world.

Please email me if you find any bits of news I may find interesting.

Grave concern as intruders risk jail sentences

editorial@hamhigh.co.uk
22 June 2007

One of the pictures taken by the trespassers on their late night visit

Ben McPartland

SECURITY measures have had to be stepped up at Highgate Cemetery because of uninvited intruders coming and going in the night.

Trespassers scaled the walls of Marx's final resting place last week to go on their own unguided tour, posting photographs on the internet to prove it.

The two trespassers - one of whom claims to be a policeman by day - are part of a growing online community known as Urban Explorers, who visit landmark locations under the cover of darkness.

But Highgate cemetery manager Simon Moore-Martin is unimpressed with the new craze.

"This is extremely serious. I would like to have their names and addresses so I can pass them onto the police.

"This is trespassing - it's illegal to be in a cemetery when the gates are closed. It is private property and it causes an awful lot of distress to grave owners.

"I don't want to talk about security arrangements but we have upped the level since I heard about this news. Even the biggest, most secure banks in England get robbed and we have only got a wall, but we do our best. We are trying to protect the cemetery as best we can with our limited funds.

''If people are caught on our camera they will be prosecuted. We caught one person before and he was put in prison for three years."

Highgate Cemetery is still a working burial ground with around 850 notable people known to have been laid to rest there, including Karl Marx, George Eliot and poisoned spy Alexander Litvinenko.

But the policeman, who goes by the alias Wraith, defended the actions of the group. He said: "We just had a look around. We never damaged or stole anything. We took nothing but photographs. We were completely respectful.

"This is pretty much like any other sport really. It is just about exploring ancient or abandoned places in the city. We have discovered hundreds of people who are doing it."

Details of their exploits were posted on the Urban Explorers website along with their pictures. Just days later they returned to the cemetery legitimately to go on an official guided tour.

Wraith said: "When we went there on our private visit we were far more respectful than the official guide who just kept making crass jokes and just rushed us round the bits he thought were good.

"One person was turned away just because he didn't have sleeves on. We would like to go back and take another look ourselves."

Mr Moore-Martin said: "Everyone has their own views. The majority of people who come here are extremely happy. These are a different type of human being if they want to run about the cemetery at night time."

ben.mcpartland@hamhigh.co.uk

An interesting article about over-crowding in London Cemeteries, from The Telegraph newspaper.

The responses also are an eye-opener!

Read the article here

Innovative burial chambers free up space at London

An article about ways Streatham Cemetery is freeing up space for more burials.

http://www.24dash.com/localgovernment/21173.htm

Hampstead and Highgate Express

FIFTY years after the death of her mother a Hampstead pensioner is still fighting for the right to visit her grave and properly grieve.

Rose Williams, 82, has never been to visit the place where her mother Rose Stripp was laid to rest because she died while an inmate at Holloway Prison and was given a pauper's burial behind locked gates in a corner of Highgate Cemetery.

Ms Williams, who lives in Fitzjohn's Avenue, hopes legal representatives can help in her quest for the remains to be exhumed, so she can say goodbye to her mother.

"This is becoming such an old case but it has never been resolved and now I've got solicitors involved," said Ms Williams.

"I've been trying to get my mother's grave transferred for years and I'm hoping my solicitor can win an exhumation order.

"We have a family plot in Hampstead Cemetery and there is a space waiting for my mother next to my late husband and other family members.

"In 50 years I have never been able to visit my mother's grave and I have never even laid one flower for her."

Ms Williams' mother gave birth to a stillborn child and ended up in a mental asylum. After escaping on various occasions, she was locked up in jail.

After becoming ill while behind bars, she was admitted to the prison hospital where she died in 1957.

Ms Williams said none of the family were informed at the time, and no-one was able to attend the funeral. To this day, no visits have ever been made to the unmarked grave.

Camden's new mayor and Frognal and Fitzjohn's councillor Dawn Somper is backing Ms Williams in her fight.

"This whole issue is terrible, it's a disgrace," she said. "Everyone should be able to visit their parents' graves.

"Ms Williams came to one of my surgeries a few weeks ago and told me about the situation which has been going on for 50 years.

She is also getting help from a solicitor and we want to do everything we can to help."

Simon Moore-Martin, manager of Highgate Cemetery, said a visit could be arranged if prior notice was given.

"In the past Ms Williams may have turned up and found the gates locked, but that doesn't mean she cannot visit the place where her mother was buried," he said. "All she has to do is contact us beforehand, and we will give her access.

"We have also allowed her to put up a plaque at the entrance to the cemetery.

"The problem with exhumation is, we cannot guarantee where her mother lies in the common grave. And we cannot just assume this lady is her daughter. That needs to be proved."

ed.thomas@hamhigh.co.uk

Click on link below to read a follow-up letter regarding this story!

Uncomfortable reading?

It's amazing what gets into the press these days - see this news item about Robbie Williams' preference for hanging out at famous peoples' grave.

[from Hornsey and Crouch End Journal]

HARINGEY undertakers have reported a rise in "fat funerals" as the population gets bigger and bigger.

More requests are being made for larger coffins and one undertaker said the largest coffin he had ordered had a width of 48 inches - compared to a standard 22ins.

Councils across the country are reporting the effects of Britain's "growing" population, with some crematoria unable to accept larger coffins because their furnaces are not wide enough.

Lewisham has ordered a "super-sized" cremator from America - which measures 44 inches across - to cope with demand.

While a spokesman for Haringey Council said that no weight-related problems had been experienced at its crematorium in Enfield, undertakers have noticed a heavier kind of client.

Peter Demetriou, of Demetriou and English Ltd, in Myddleton Road, Bounds Green, said: "The majority of coffins are very large. We often deal with the Greek community and they tend to be of a large size but there is a greater demand for the bigger coffin size now. The widest coffin I have had to supply is 48ins wide.

"The majority of funerals we do are burials, so the width isn't a problem in that respect."

A spokesman for F Upson, in Tottenham High Road, also confirmed there was an increased demand for bigger coffins, but declined to discuss further.

In Britain, 22 per cent of the population is classed as obese, with three-quarters termed as overweight.

The Local Government Association (LGA) has warned councils to take action.

Councillor Hazel Harding, of the LGA, said: "The death of a loved one is always a difficult time and having to decamp to another area for the cremation just adds to the ordeal.

"It is important that grieving relatives get the service they deserve and councils are doing what they can to accommodate larger clients locally.

"By upgrading their crematoria and widening furnaces, councils are changing the services people use for the better to make sure that relatives are not put out.

"As waist lines keep on expanding we can expect more and more councils to provide larger furnaces."

Tim Morris, chief executive of the Institute of Cemetery and Crematorium Management, said he had received calls from funeral directors all over the country who are looking for larger crematoriums.