HISTORY

Historical Periods

It is a convention in European landscape analysis to view landscape as having changed through various historical periods. This is a reflection of the strong influence of human activity on the landscape over thousands of years; in contrast to the way the way New World landscapes had to be studied in the early nineteenth century by Emmerson.

As can be seen below, the historical overlay periods for Abney Park become shorter the closer we approach the modern day. This is both a reflection of the greater influence of recent human activity on the landscape, and also its increasing documentation.

The Ten 'Historical Overlays'

Phase 2 Roman, Mediaeval and early Manorial period

Phase 3 The Abney & Fleetwood Park Estates: c.1690- 1838, building of Abney House and laying out of its park associated with Life of Dr Isaac Watts and Lady Mary Abney; Fleetwood House and gardens laid out in part of the grounds, becoming Newington Academy for Girls

Phase 4 Design and opening of the first Nondenominational Garden Cemetery in Europe, preserving the Historic Park & adding an educational Arboretum and Methodist training college: 1838-1845 (primarily 1838-40)

Phase 5 Multi-purpose management as a Cemetery, Historic Park & Arboretum - by Trustees and Directors of a Joint Stock Company established solely for Abney Park: 1845-81

Phase 6 Commercial Cemetery Management - by a stock market registered general cemetery company (maintaining four cemeteries) and landscape to suit: 1881-1918

Phase 7 Inter-war Infilling degradation of landscape, main axis, and estate paths: 1918-1945

Phase 8 Neglect, Liquidation & Closure - post-war infilling of paths and open areas, eventual neglect, liquidation and closure as a working cemetery: 1945-1979

Phase 9 Management of Historic Estate by Hackney Council - early management of the historic estate by Hackney Council for community access, monument repair and study, and formation of landscape plans, with only courtesy burials: 1979-91

Phase 10 Abney Park Trust established to secure long-term access, community and educational/training use, restore buildings and historic and ecological value: 1991-

Each of these historical overlay periods is being assessed by the Trust for the ten landscape zones of Abney Park (see 'Nature' or 'Nature and Landscape' pages), and when complete will underpin our future proposals. The Trust's website will then be updated to precisely reflect the historical periods for each landscape zone. Meanwhile a more discursive 'general history' is provided below.

General History

Today Abney Park extends over some 32 acres (13ha) on a gentle north-facing sandy slope running down from an ancient ridgeway track of Church Street to the Hackey Brook that was diverted underground in Victorian times by Joseph Bazalgette.

In about 1700 the estate, then slightly larger, became the parkland grounds of the new manor house, Abney House, and another mansion nearby (Fleetwood House), complete with gardens, ornamental water, paddocks, orchards, a small farm, semi-wooded wilderness and riverside .

Abney House was named after Lady Mary Abney, who moved here in the early 1700s with her daughters and Dr Isaac Watts to manage and landscape the estate. Dr Watts, a liberal or ecumenical Dissenter, was the 'Father of Hymnody'. His life at Abney Park has been commemorated since 1845 by a large statue and by 'Dr Watts' Mound' (once an island in the Hackney Brook) crowned by a large chestnut tree in the extreme north-eastern corner of Abney Park. The ornamental ironwork over the Church Street entrance to the cemetery consists partly of the original entrance ironwork to Abney House.

Fleetwood House and gardens laid out in part of the grounds was named after Oliver Cromwell's army general and son-in-law, Charles Fleetwood, who retired here for a while before the Hartopp family became neighbours to Lady Mary Abney. Hartopp was a nonconformist Whig MP who employed Isaac Watts to live in at the park as resident tutor to his children before Watts was invited to live with the Abney family in Hertfordshire. Watts returned some years later to Abney Park to live with his patron, Lady Mary Abney, at Abney House, when her husbands Hertfordshire residence was vacated on his death.

The gardens that once belonged to Fleetwood House today form the south western part of the cemetery grounds, around the Cedar Circle and the cemetery's former horticultural beds, or Loddiges Gardens, which were situated next to the craft and maintenance workshops and greenhouses. These gardens, along with Fleetwood House itself were for a time in the early part of the nineteenth century, the celebrated grounds of a novel Quaker school, 'Newington Academy for Girls' (1824- ?) under the headmistress, Susanna Corder, who later became a biographical authoress in Boston before retiring to Chelmsford. The school was founded by the eminent Quaker scientist, philantropist, slavery abolitionist and educationalist, William Allen, and latterly his third wife Grizelle Birkbeck. It taught the new sciences to girls, and achieved notoriety when it became first school in the world to buy and use a school bus -a 'Shillibeer'. Though deprived of its grounds on formation of the cemetery, the school made good use of the arboretum gardens of the cemetery. Fleetwood House was pulled down in 1872 but the school had moved at an unknown date, certainly before Susanna Corder's death in 1865. 'Quakers in Stoke Newington'

The Idealistic Cemetery Founders

In the early part of the nineteenth century the population of the City of London was increasing, and its churchyard burial grounds and independent burial grounds could no longer cope. Commercial companies were fored to invest in large, landscaped burial grounds a few miles from the City boundary, subject to obtaining permission from the Church of England through Acts of Parliament and making payments to the Church authorities for foregone burial fees. These new burial grounds adopted the term 'cemetery' to distinguish themselves as having landscapes and buildings as well as burial space.

One particular City burial ground, 'Bunhill Fields Burial Ground', was becoming full, and its main users (nonconformists; especially Congregationalists for the main burial ground, and Quakers for the smaller adjacent part) became interested in finding new burial land. The Congregationalist's sent George Collison, one of their number, to visit Mount Auburn Cemetery near Boston; a city his father had visited whilst he was a boy, on behalf of the Congregationalist ministers. His family, like so many other Congregationalists had strong connections with Boston, which was the principal publishing ground for Isaac Watts' American editions. Here George Collison make a detailed first-hand study of Mount Auburn Cemetery. On his return, he drew up a scheme for a new London cemetery that paralleled the New World's nondenominational approach, and reflected the Congregationalists' longstanding emphasis on working non-denominationally e.g. for slavery abolition and missionary work. Nonetheless, a less radical option was considered: a dialogue was opened up with the Anglican church to explore the conventional approach, of gaining their support for an Act of Parliament, which would necessitate setting aside a consecrated burial area and paying the Church for assumed foregone burial fees. Comparing the two options, Collison and his co-founders chose to open an entirely non-denominational and comletely independent of church and state, as at Massachusetts. Thus the promoters of Abney Park Cemetery formally agreed to plan and design the first wholly non-denominational garden cemetery in Europe.

Abney Park aimed to be quite distinct from what was otherwise being designed in the name of 'burial reform'; and its architecture and landscape was to reflect this utterly.

The interconnected parkland grounds of Fleetwood and Abney Houses, with many fine trees and walks, if amalgamated, also offered the prospect of preserving the historic estate of 'Abney Park'  in Dr Watts' and Lady Mary Abney through burial income. The estate was bought with this heritage purpose in mind, in addition to burial purposes, and so the park was opened not as a cemetery per se, but also as a free public park and arboretum, initially also with an educational college. It was the only C19th garden cemetery for the metropolis not to be founded by an Act of Parliament to specify the land solely for use as burial land.

To achieve these wider purposes, and influenced by the 'New World' cemetery design at Mount Auburn Cemetery near Boston that had been developed with the Massachusetts Horticultural Society and had been visited by the Company Solicitor, the promoters collaborated with Loddiges' Nursery of Mare Street Hackney to develop a very fine educational arboretum laid out in an unusual alphabetical fashion. At its zenith it eclipsed the Royal Park at Kew, with 2,500 different species-2,000 in place when the cemetery opened in May 1840 along with a wonderful rosarium near the chapel. The effect was to make Abney an educational landscape attraction from the outset and give it a special value for botany, which was also reflected in the detail of its architecture both at the Chapel and the 'Egyptial revival' entrance ensemble.

The arboretum captured the enthusiasm of leading horticultural writers such as John Loudon, who singled out Abney Park as a cemetery for praise, although he normally advocated more formal designs and was scathing about the 'pleasure ground' approach incommon use for cemeteries as at Norwood. Loudon's support ensured that Abney Park's fame spread nationwide. Today is is the most significant landscape in the UK designed and influenced by George Loddiges albeit that unusual tree species rather than layout is predominantly the surviving legacy.

Established both as a conventional Joint Stock Company and also under a Trust deed, and with various loan agreements, Abney Park Cemetery opened its uniquely non-denominational, arboretum and educational venture (including a theological college at the parkland cemetery) at Abney Park in May 1840. This virtuous enterprise lasted until the early 1880s when it was sold to a new, purely commercial, general cemetery company. This had been recently formed and launched for public acquisition on the stock market, with a plan to seek to acquire Abney Park Cemetery and develop three other cemeteries as commercial enterprises for the metropolis.

The commercial company inherited an admirable legacy on acquisition of Abney Park, and used the name for the whole company. However, this legacy would eventually become difficult to maintain. Partly because of the cemetery's distinctive ownership and approach, it had appealed to a limited audience of investors and users. It had become primarily a burial site for educated and independent minded C19th Congregationalist ministers, educationalists and missionaries; and more generally an important burial place for other like minded nonconformists. This trend prompted a nineteenth century biographer of Isaac Watts to refer to Abney Park Cemetery as the then 'Campo Santo of Dissenters'; an appelation that the poet Southey had recently applied to 'Bunhill Fields' in respect of its importance for the burials of prominent seventeenth and eighteenth century nonconformists.

Changes During the Twentieth Century

The new commercial cemetery company gradually left its mark on the original Abney Park. Unlike the original joint stock enterprise and trustees of the park, its investors were not primarily learned nonconformists with an interest in the heritage and an attractive landscape in which to reside for eternity. High Victorian and Edwardian commercial imperatives necessitated a constant search for more burial land to sell. This was gradually achieved at the expense of the landscaped estate - its trees and even its paths. Moreover, the Abney House carrigeway itself was infilled and the remaining connection with the once historic house almost entirely lost, from the early C20th onwards, save for parts of its gates. The dedication of the main axial walk to Isaac Watts suffered a similar undignified fate.

Eventually, as the cemetery became more an more in-filled, and the Abney Park Cemetery Company's income at its other cemeteries also dwindled, the resources available for maintenance in the group of comercial cemeteries all but dried up.

The nursery ground in the south-west corner of Abney Park was sold for new burial plots, restricting the quuality of grounds maintenance and planting. Then the adjacent courtyard buildings were demolished pending a similar fate, one that would have severly hampered all grounds maintenance if carried out. Fortunately this and other 'last-ditch' infill schemes were never implemented because the finances of the company were so bad by the early 1970s that Abney Park, along with the companies' other London cemeteries, went into liquidation.

Sadly the cemetery forecourt's shop was sold commercially, but otherwise Abney Park passed intact to the London Borough of Hackney. The companies' other London cemeteries were likewise adopted by their respective local council's. Abney Park became closed to burials, but the Council, out of courtesy to local peole with relatives in the grounds, operated a policy of permitting discretionary burial where it did not interefer with conservation management and public amenity.

The fortunate result of many years neglect had, however, been to allow the cemetery to develop more extensively into 'secondary woodland' or an 'urban forest' than its original founders might have envisaged, though ithey would perhaps have been pleased since a woodland landscape is in keeping with the landscape of Mount Auburn Cemetery, which had been their original inspiration.

Fortunately also, the woodland cloak protected the monuments from vandalism. Moreover, very creditably, Hackney Council did not endeavour to 'clear' swathes of headtones as happened at other Victorian cemeteries such as Nunhead and Norwood. Instead they comissioned a splendid book from architectural historian Paul Joyce, and co-financed a momument restoration programme. This has led to a much better preserved sepulchural collection at Abney Park than is common elsewhere; an almost complete collection. 

In the early 1990s a group of local people formed the Abney Park Cemetery Trust with the objective of further conserving the cemetery and promoting its educational use. The historically important entrance was enhanced by sympathetic courtyard improvements, a cobbled carriageway leading to a novel sundial, and new planting. The main part of the South Lodge was converted into a Visitor Centre with study materials, books, postcards and posters for sale.

A temporary classroom was added next to the North Lodge in the late 1990s, along with a children's garden. A plant nursery and recycling area was set out on the opposite side, and more recently a strategic walk for London, The Capital Ring, has opened with the park one of its focal points of historic interest. This year (2006) a new use has begun for the North Lodge - a stone masonry training centre.

Currently the Trust is developing long-term plans to improve access and use of Abney Park, and re-open its chapel.  For example, the former cemetery shop which was part of the South Lodge is still privately owned (no 219 Stoke Newington High Street) and the Trust would like to see this brought back as part of the community resource, along with rebuilding the cemetery's old courtyard for craft workshops, re-opening the former nursey garden for plant stock, building a permanent educational building, and upgrading the Visitor Lodge with a green roof. 

Plans for the reopening of the Chapel for community use are being developed that would also include improving the Chapel Lawns and the Chapel's axial walk past Dr Watts' statue leading to Church Street, where there could be furthrer improvements to access, landscape and interpretation. The Trust would like to see ecological improvements for the old sandy heathland areas and the northern woodland, together with replanting of ornamental poplars at path intersctions in the southern areas, and the historic replanting of its perimeter A to Z arboretum, Cedar Circle tree, and splendid Bhutan Pines of the Chapel Walk, named Pinus chylla (Lodd.) by George Loddiges from the local name still used today in the Himalayas in India.

Further Information

For further helpful information about Abney Park and its history and burials please see the on-line encyclopaedia Wikipedia.

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