| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Des Res at Heaven's Gate | |
| Posted by: | Caroline Whitehead | |
| Date/Time: | 24/02/10 17:18:00 |
| Found this on the Web. There is alos a photo taken in the 50s but it has not copied. Might be worth contacting FOBC to find out what is or is not happening now. BARNES - OLD BARNES CEMETERY This cemetery was formed in 1855 and was nearly full when John Eustace Anderson was writing his local history in 1900 when he anticipated the need for a new cemetery. Anderson records that there was a mortuary chapel as well as the cemetery. There is no more - the chapel was demolished, along with the boundary railings, soon after the cemetery officially closed in the 1950's. This really is one of London's forgotten cemeteries and people walking along one of the footpaths in these woods might be forgiven for not appreciating that this was once a cemetery at all. There are several ghostly tales associated with this place including a hovering nun who floats above a grave plus "Spring Heal Jack" a devilish imp with pointed ears and piercing eyes carried out a number of attacks on people as they crossed common at night during Victorian times. FROM April 2009 Barnes Community Association News Sheet “All things bright and beautiful will resonate over the graves on Barnes Common at a service of commemoration and thanksgiving.St Mary’s Church, with the Friends of Barnes Common(FOBC),is sponsoring a service to remember all the local people buried in the old Barnes cemetery, and to celebrate the recent clearance work to reclaim the old cemetery. Did you know that for a century (1855-1954) the old cemetery,south of the Rocks Lane tennis courts, was the main burial place for Barnes families? Over 3,000 people are buried there.It looked very different in those days, as the picture shows. Then,for years, it sadly suffered from vandalism and neglect. But recently the FOBC have worked with Richmond Council to improve access while maintaining it as part of the local nature reserve.There are many fascinating gravestones in the cemetery – all legible inscriptions were recorded by volunteers from the Barnes and Mortlake Historical Society in the 1960s. Last year articles in both the Times and in Prospect focussed on the grave of Ebenezer Cobb Morley, an all-round local sportsman, who wrote the first rules of football for the FA. One of the most striking features is the large number of babies and children buried here as local families were decimated by ‘fever’ in the nineteenth century. FOBC maintain eight war graves and at the request of families will create access to any of the graves.” |