C.E.M. Joad's grave. Photograph by Iain MacFarlaine

C.E.M. Joad, English philosopher and broadcasting personality is buried at St John-at-Hampstead, London.

St John-at-Hampstead is a Church of England church dedicated to St John the Evangelist in Church Row, Hampstead, London. The history of the church goes back to a Charter granted to the Monks of Westminster in 986 AD

Visiting

Tomb Trails are available in the church. The Camden History Society publication Buried in Hampstead, by Christopher Wade, which gives details of a selection of the most well-known, is also available from the church’s online shop.

Also see…

• St John-at-Hampstead
• Wikipedia article on St John-at Hampstead

The catacombs at Warstone Lane Cemetery

This grade-two-listed cemetery is where atheist printer John Baskerville is buried.

Warstone Lane Cemetery was opened in 1848 by the Birmingham Church of England Cemetery Company and acquired by the Birmingham City Council under a compulsory purchase order in 1951.

Baskerville left instructions in his will that he was to be buried in a lead coffin in a conical vault which he had prepared, in his own garden. After the house was sold in 1788 the vault was removed, but the coffin remained until 1821. The open coffin was put on display, for 6d a head, until in 1829 people start to fall ill!

The coffin was reburied secretly among others in a church vault and only rediscovered in 1892. When the church was demolished in 1898 he was reburied in the catacombs at Warstone Lane.

Previously the catacombs’s unpleasant smells had led to the Birmingham Cemetery Act (1846?) which required that non-interred coffins should be sealed with lead or pitch.

The cemetery chapel of St Michael at the cemetery was demolished in 1954 but the grade II listed  blue brick cemetery lodge survived today.

Visiting

The cemetery is open to visitors (see website for opening times). The number 101 bus goes there from Birmingham City Centre; Jewellery Quarter rail & Metro station.

See also…

• Warston Lane Cemetery official site
• Wikipedia article on the cemetery

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This is the resting place of philosopher David Hume who died in 1776.

Hume prescribed this “simple Roman tomb” which stands, as he wished it, on the Eastern slope of the Calton Hill overlooking his home in the New Town of Edinburgh at No. 1 St. David Street.

Hume also wrote his own epitaph: “Born 1711, Died [—]. Leaving it to posterity to add the rest” which is inscribed on the tomb.

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Sunset over Colwyn Bay

Colwyn Bay (Bae Colwyn) is a town and seaside resort in Conwy county borough on the North Wales coast.

Philosopher Bertrand Russell was cremated here on 5 February 1970. In accordance with his will there was no religious ceremony; his ashes were scattered over the Welsh mountains.

Visiting

The A55 road passes through the town which is also served by Colwyn Bay railway station.

Also see…

• Bay of Colwyn Town Council

Brookwood Cemetery

Brookwood Cemetery, the largest in the UK, is the resting place of secularist politician Charles Bradlaugh.

Bradlaugh died in 1891 as the House of Commons expunged the resolutions forbidding him to take his seat. He was buried at Brookwood in the presence of thousands of his admirers.

He is buried in a family grave in plot 108. The memorial used to include a fine bronze bust by the sculptor Francis Verheyden, but this was stolen some years ago. The pedestal also included a bronze wreath but this has also been stolen from the memorial.

Brookwood Cemetery or London Necropolis, like Highgate Cemetery was created in the Victorian period. At one point, it was the largest cemetery in the world.

Due to several high profile incidents involving the internment of its citizens, there was a push for the creation of more cemetaries outside of the city centre in Victorian England.  Many of the cemeteries that are landmarks today were created in this period, such as Brookwood, Highgate and Kensal Green.  Brookwood Cemetery was created by the London Necropolis Company in 1849.

Brookwook had its own rail line and was spread out over 2,000 acres near Woking, Surrey. The building of the cemetery and the workings of the London Necropolis Company were fraught with infights and take over battles.

The Necropolis Church was built to cater to all denominations. Additionally there is a large military cemetery which includes soliders from the Commonwealth as well as the United States.

Visiting

Regular trains depart from Waterloo Station to Brookwood, near the cemetery.

Visiting Hours:
Daily from 7am to 7pm (Summer: April – Sept)
Daily from 7am to 5pm (Winter: Oct – Mar)

Also see…

• Brockwood Cemetery
• The Brookwood Cemetery Society

Westminster Abbey

Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in Westminster, London, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster.

Since it was built it has been the place where the coronations of Kings and Queens of England have been held.

A number of humanists’ remains are buried in the Abbey.

Scientist Charles Darwin and Prime Minister Clement Attlee‘s ashes are buried in the nave. A plaque commemorating physicist Paul Dirac was unveiled in the nave by Stephen Hawking in 1995.

Among the poets buried or memorialised in the South Transept which is known as Poets’ Corner are Thomas Hardy, George Eliot and Shelley.

Writer Aphra Behn is buried in the Cloisters.

Visiting

The Abbey is open to the public Monday-Saturday. There is a fee for people aged 11 and above. See website for details.

Also see…

• Westminster Abbey
• Famous people buried at the Abbey

Highgate’s name dates back to the medieval period, when a toll gate was established to charge people coming in to London from the North.  It was once a meadow but the town became established with the toll.  The cemetery was built on the grounds of the estate of William Ashurst, MP and Lord Mayor of London. After his death it became a boy’s school and finally church grounds in 1832.

Highgate Cemetery

It was Stephan Geary who would form the London Cemetery Company and plan the grounds of the cemetery which included the Egyptian Avenue and Terrace Catacombs.  Due to the Victorian pomp surrounding death and funerals, Highgate would be the final resting place of many wealthy Victorians, with their graves and tombs reflecting the Gothic architectural tastes of the time.  The grounds would maintain many of the trees associated with the Ashurst estate, making Highgate one of the most scenic locations in all of London.

The Eastern half of the cemetery is the final resting place of many famous English and foreign men and women of distinction.  The novelist Douglas Adams and polymath Jacob Bronowski have small and simple grave markers, whereas the memorial to Karl Marx dominates his surrounding avenue.  Near Marx is the founder of social Darwinism and the man who coined the phrase, ‘Survival of the fittest’, Herbert Spencer.  Stephan Geary would succumb to the last of London’s Cholera epidemics and laid to rest in Highgate.  His grave would be covered in ivy for decades after World War Two and only rediscovered in 1970s.

Visiting

Weekdays: 10 am – 5pm, last entrance 4:30 pm (1st March – 31st October)
Weekdays: 10 am – 4pm, last entrance 3:30 pm (November – 28th February)
Weekends: from 11 am

The closest tube is Archway but see Friends of Highgate for more information on visiting the cemetery.

Also See…

• Friends of Highgate Cemetery

Glasnevin Tower

Glasnevin Cemetery (officially known as Prospect Cemetery) is the largest nondenominational cemetery in Ireland and was first opened in 1832.

The brainchild of Catholic rights leader Daniel O’Connell, it was established as a place where people of all religions could bury their dead, in response to the lack of Catholic cemeteries and the restrictions placed on Catholic services in the eighteenth century Penal Laws.

The cemetery contains the graves of the Sheehy-Skeffingtons - the atheist, feminist and Irish nationalist Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, her husband, the atheist, pacifist, suffragist and writer, Francis, and their son, Owen, a founder member of the Irish Humanist Association.

The cemetery was one of the few cemeteries that allowed stillborn and unbaptised babies to be buried in consecrated ground and its ‘Angels Plot’ was dedicated to this purpose.

In April 2010 the Glasnevin Trust Museum opened to tell the story of the cemetery’s history.

Visting

The cemetery is located on Finglas Road, Dublin 11. A number of buses run from Dublin city centre to the cemetery.

Office Opening hours are Mon – Friday 9.30am to 5.00pm and Saturday 9.30am to 1.00pm. There are daily walking tours of the cemetery at 11.30am 12.30pm and 2.30pm including Sundays & Bank Holidays. The tour cost is 5 Euro.

Also see…

• Glasnevin Trust Museum
• Irish Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Society