Keeping Highgate Cemetery alive

There are many long-abandoned graves which could be used

For hundreds of years English churchyards accommodated the dead of their parish in a tiny amount of space. Successive generations were buried on top of each other, with the remains of their predecessors lowered in the grave or removed to a charnel house.

It was a sustainable solution until the massive growth in population from the late eighteenth century.

The Victorians responded with the idea of large urban cemeteries offering private family graves where members could be buried together. Rights of burial were granted in perpetuity.

Yet often families proved more mobile and less keen on maintaining a single burial place than anticipated, and many graves have been simply forgotten altogether by descendants.

At Highgate, some graves never had memorials, others have memorials which are now severely damaged, and still others never even received a burial. Subject to appropriate safeguards (ultimately determined by Parliament), long-abandoned graves have the potential to provide a much-needed place of burial and thereby to keep the cemetery landscape alive.

There are not so many graves available that grave renewal would bring about a sudden transformation in the appearance of the Cemetery. The process is labour intensive. A small but steady supply of renewed graves is envisaged.

A private Bill is the answer

To become sustainable, Highgate Cemetery needs the power to take back the ownership of graves which are no longer wanted and of the memorials on top of them. New burials could be made in empty graves, on top of part-used graves or in space created by lifting and reinterring earlier remains at greater depth.

These powers are already available to local authority cemeteries
in London under various Acts of Parliament. Very recently the New Southgate Cemetery Act 2017 gave similar powers to another private cemetery. We are bringing forward a new private Bill of our own so that Highgate Cemetery can be managed in the same way.

Private Bills change the law as it applies only to specific individuals or organisations rather than to the general public. Highgate Cemetery was established by a private Bill in 1836. As a result, legislation allowing other cemeteries to re-use burial spaces does not extend to Highgate Cemetery.

Within the consecrated part of the Cemetery, grave renewal would also be subject to authorisation from the Diocese of London and we are hopeful of its support. The Chancellor of Southwark Diocese has stated that ‘there should be an expectation that grave spaces will in due course be reused, and this is necessary to economise on land- use at a time when grave space is a diminishing resource.’

Grave owner interests will be paramount

Grave renewal would be carried out with the greatest respect for grave owners and those buried in the Cemetery. Though it is ultimately for Parliament to decide on the provisions of the Bill, we will be seeking the following safeguards.

Only long-abandoned graves would be considered for renewal. These are graves where the last burial was over 75 years ago or, if the grave is empty, which were sold more than 75 years ago.

We would do our best to contact the owner. We would write to them at the address recorded in our register and we would place notices in the press, on the web, at the cemetery entrance, and on the grave itself.

If within six months the owner objected, the renewal would not proceed. If an objection were received from a relative of any person buried in the grave whose remains were proposed to be disturbed, no renewal would be considered for a further period of 25 years.

We would also notify the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and Historic England. If they objected, grave renewal could not proceed without the consent of the Secretary of State.

With these safeguards we would be doing our best to ensure that no grave owner would be separated from the ownership of a grave which they value. We are continuing to consider and engage with stakeholders about how these safeguards can be refined.

Heritage will be safeguarded

We do not propose to remove as part of the programme of grave renewal any of the significant memorials which make Highgate Cemetery such a special place. Heritage protections would be strong.

There are about eighty memorials protected by listing, and all pre-1925 memorials in Highgate Cemetery are protected by conservation area designation. And while Historic England and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission would be notified of all proposals to extinguish rights of burial or disturb remains, it is unlikely that any graves of interest to them would be affected.

Priority graves for renewal would be those with no memorial or where the memorial is extensively damaged. Records would be made of any removed memorial and deposited with the Registrar General.

Guidance would be developed to ensure that the design of new memorials on renewed graves would be appropriate to their context.

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