Abney Park is situated on Stoke Newington High Street in Hackney London N16 and managed by the Abney Park Trust. If you would like to join Friends of the Trust and receive a quarterly newsletter keeping you uptodate with events and our work, please send a cheque for £12 or £6 concessions, to 'Abney Park Cemetery Trust', Stoke Newington High St, N16 OLN. Donations are put towards the maintenance of the site and our free activities.
We research memorials and grave locations for £8 each; we offer a digital photo service for memorial stones for £10; and a susidised maintenance programme for memorials, which comprises four clearances @ £24 a year.
Upcoming activities
Beginners stone carving - every tuesday 10.00am to 12.00 starting Sept 2nd (free to Hackney residents, donation required from others)
Green woodworking from September dates to be confirmed.
General History guided walk Sunday 14th September at 2pm
Moth and Bat walk Saturday 13th September 7.30pm
Newly developed history walks available, free to schools call 0207 275 7557 to book
Volunteering is a great way to get some fresh air, some exercise, meet new people, learn about trees and wildlife and gain new skills. The Trust holds a drop in day every Tuesday and Thursday from 09.30am to 3.30pm. No experience is necessary. Tools, tea and gloves are provided. For more details click on volunteering in the right hand coloumn.
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What they said about Abney Park Cemetery...
 Famous Quotes 
Found in a Victorian edition of The Eclectic Magazine , edited by John Holmes Agnew & Walter Hilliard Bidwell:
... Abney Park would no more be confounded with the exemplar of a Christian cemetery, than our joint-stock propietary schools are with Winchester or Eton, or a stuccoed 'place of worship', with the parish church.
...the irreverencies of Abney Park or the fripperies and frigidities of Pere la Chaise...
Found in London by Day and Night, chapter 14 - Reminiscences of the Past, by David W.Bartlett, 1852:
...There is a beautiful cemetery in Stoke Newington, and it was given to the inhabitants by Lady Abney, who was a sincere friend to Dr. Watts. There is in it a pretty little church, where funeral services are performed by all denominations of Christians. Lady Abney was very liberal in her religious views, and the cemetery is, with its church, open to all alike, and though its grounds were never consecrated, yet many rigid churchmen have been buried in it...
...There is no quieter burial spot within a dozen miles of London in any direction, and there are cedars of Lebanon in it, wide lawns, and beautiful flowers. There is an old clergyman in the church, who is always ready to officiate for a small fee on funeral occasions. He is over eighty years old, his hair is like the snow, and he is a fit companion to such a solemn place...
...One shining evening, with a female friend we visited the cemetery, and stopped in the little Gothic chapel to talk with the venerable clergyman. The tears actually sprung over his eyelids when we said that we came from America. "Ah!" said he, "I have two fine boys there!" Almost every family among the poor respectable classes in England, has some member, or relation in America. The old man asked a thousand questions about the wonderful far land of liberty in the west..
Found in On the Planting, and Managing of Cemeteries, by J.C.Loudon, Ivelet Books reprint 1981, introduced by J.C.Curl:
Vaults: One of the best examples, on a small and economical scale, is the public vault in the Abney park Cemetery.
The educational aspects of cemeteries were strong at Abney Park Cemetery, London, where trees and shrubs were labelled for the enlightenment of all those who walked there..
Loudon approved of Abney Park Cemetery because of the excellence of the planting that formed 'one of the most complete arboretums in the neighbourhood of London, all the trees and shrubs being named'...
Found in Congregationalism by Susan Thorne:
Those who had been villified during the 1790s as politically subversive and socially disreputable 'descendants of the Puritans' would increasingly be viewed as the 'thinking, active influential classes, the modern movers and shakers of our world' Or so the Rev. Thomas Binney put it (Opening Address, Congregational Yearbook, 1848)
Found in a Victorian periodical below an engraving of the new statue to Isaac Watts
As a place of sepulture.. and ornamented both by nature and art this beautiful cemetery must have attractions for the most unobserving and the least reflecting... a more picturesque and accessible spot... it would be difficult to find.
The words of the Rev. Thomas Baker Abney Park Cemetery: A Complete Descriptive Guide, 1869
In the midst of the grounds stands a very beautiful chapel, rearing its graceful form above that 'long row of reverend elms' consecrated by Watts to his friendship with Gunston... It is one of the most interesting and appropriate of the class of structures adapted solely for burial purposes; and embosomed among the ancient and stately trees, the whole forms a picture of nature and art combined, not easily to be surpassed.
Abney Park has never receieved Episcopal consecration; every portion of this cemetery is accessible to all parties, without distinction or preference.
The original prospectus opened with the following sentence: 'The object of this cemetery is the establishment of a general cemetery.. which shall be open to all classes of the community... without restraint in forms.'
The words of the cemetery chaplain, the Rev. J.Branthwhite French, Walks in Abney Park1883
The ear, also, which is attuned to sweet sound, may drink the joyous melody of the feathered tribe. the nightingale, the thrush, the blackbird, the linnet, and the lark are not strangers, but sojourners here.
In the words of The Secret Cemetery, by Doris Francis, Leonie Kellaher & Georina Neophytou, 2005
Tha annual Bronterre O'Brien oration similarly makes the contribution to society of this leading nineteenth-century Chartist and Nonconformist, who is buried at Abney Park Cemetery. Very mixed groups celebrate his Irish non-Catholic origins, along with his political status. For instance the oration during the fieldwork period was delievred by Arthur Scargill (a once prominent trade unionist) and attended by people from ethnic Irish, socialist, and trade union groups, and also by local people, including family groups.
A review of research on natural landscapes in urban areas, sponsored by English Nature, documents many of the reasons Abney Park is valued as auniquee communityresource. It suggests that contact with nature, particularly areas with woodlands and paths through low vegetation - the environment of Abney Park Cemetery- provides emotional sustanance and engenders feelings of calm, serenity and restoration.
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