DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1213#0235
CHAPTER XII.
THE PUBLIC CEMETERIES.
We are returning in some respects to the customs of our
ancestors. In another portion of this work we have
shewn that extra-mural interment prevailed centuries ago
in England. The practice of burying within the walls of
a city of such vast population and so thickly covered
with buildings as London, has long been prejudicially
felt, and there can be no doubt that this pernicious
system has added, in no inconsiderable degree, to the
metropolitan mortality. A better state of things is now in
progress, the health of the people has become an object
of primary importance, and as a means of improving the
public health, cemeteries have of recent years been estab-
lished in localities at considerable distances beyond the
range of the metropolis, and which we doubt not will
in the course of time entirely supersede the intra-mural
burial-places.
Of these cemeteries the first formed, and the most ex-
tensive one, is that at Kensal Green, projected under the
auspices of the General Cemetery Company, and opened
in 1832. It is situate on the Harrow Road, about three
miles from the Hyde Park end of Oxford-street, and is
composed of 46 acres of ground, beautifully planted with
flowers and shrubs. It contains two chapels, one for the
use of Dissenters, a colonnade, and catacombs, which are
adapted for the reception of 5,000 bodies. The ground is
covered with tombs and ornamental monuments, on not a
few of which are inscriptions of a powerful and touching
character. The late Duke of Susses and the Princess
Sophia are buried here; and among the other denizens of
this silent " city of the dead," may be named the Rev.
Sydney Smith; Thomas Hood; Thomas Barnes (an emi-
nent editor of the Times newspaper); Allan Cunningham,
the poet; Dr. Birkbeck, whose noblest monuments are
THE PUBLIC CEMETERIES.
We are returning in some respects to the customs of our
ancestors. In another portion of this work we have
shewn that extra-mural interment prevailed centuries ago
in England. The practice of burying within the walls of
a city of such vast population and so thickly covered
with buildings as London, has long been prejudicially
felt, and there can be no doubt that this pernicious
system has added, in no inconsiderable degree, to the
metropolitan mortality. A better state of things is now in
progress, the health of the people has become an object
of primary importance, and as a means of improving the
public health, cemeteries have of recent years been estab-
lished in localities at considerable distances beyond the
range of the metropolis, and which we doubt not will
in the course of time entirely supersede the intra-mural
burial-places.
Of these cemeteries the first formed, and the most ex-
tensive one, is that at Kensal Green, projected under the
auspices of the General Cemetery Company, and opened
in 1832. It is situate on the Harrow Road, about three
miles from the Hyde Park end of Oxford-street, and is
composed of 46 acres of ground, beautifully planted with
flowers and shrubs. It contains two chapels, one for the
use of Dissenters, a colonnade, and catacombs, which are
adapted for the reception of 5,000 bodies. The ground is
covered with tombs and ornamental monuments, on not a
few of which are inscriptions of a powerful and touching
character. The late Duke of Susses and the Princess
Sophia are buried here; and among the other denizens of
this silent " city of the dead," may be named the Rev.
Sydney Smith; Thomas Hood; Thomas Barnes (an emi-
nent editor of the Times newspaper); Allan Cunningham,
the poet; Dr. Birkbeck, whose noblest monuments are