Tower Hamlets cemetery (aka Bow Cemetery)

Tower Hamlets Cemetery, aka Bow Cemetery, is the 3rd of the Magnificent Seven London cemetries that I have visited. The first two are West Norwood Cemetery and Nunhead Cemetery.

The "Magnificent Seven" are seven private Victorian cemeteries in London, dating back to the 19th century.  They were built in a ring outside the centre of London in an attempt to help overcrowding in existing parish burial grounds.

Traditionally, people who died in London were buried in churchyards. But when the population of London doubled in the first half of the 19th century, these churchyards became overcrowded leading to epidemics and pollutants getting into the water supply, carried by the sewer rats.

In the 1830s, seven cemeteries were established around London. The third one I visited was Tower Hamlets in the London Borough of the same name. It is also known as Bow Cemetery as it is near Bow Church. It opened in 1841 and closed to new burials in 1966.

I didn't find it particularly interesting in terms of the graves and there are no "famous" people buried there. After the cemetery closed in 1966 it became overgrown and money had run out. It was proposed to clear the gravestones to make a grassed park, but public protests stopped this. In 1986 the Borough took over ownership and in 2001 the site was designated as a nature reserve. Today there is a lot of emphasis on nature trails to see the flora and fauna.

I visited in Dec so there were no flowers and not much to see in terms of seasonal flora etc.

The cemetery walls are grade II listed as well as 7 memorials. One listed memorial is for Joseph Westwood, he was connected to an ironworks company. He died in 1883. The memorial is made of Portland stone and takes the form of a decorated wayside cross consisting of a crocketed spire carried on four open arches with angle buttresses. Square plinth with stepped angle buttresses and recessed ogee inscription panels to each face (from Historic England). An ogee is a curved shaped like the letter S.

There is a war memorial dedicated to 190 people of Poplar who were killed in WW2. Will Crooks was the first Labour mayor of Poplar and MP for Woolwich. He died in 1921.

See more on Tower Hamlets Cemetery on Wikipedia which has a list of some of the notable burials. See also Friends of Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park.

The historic Bow Church -

Note this is not the church with the famous Bow Bells as mentioned in the nursery rhyme Oranges and Lemons. The great bell of Bow is actually in St Mary-le-Bow Church at Cheapside, near St Pauls Cathedral.