Enfilade

Distributed by Liverpool University Press:

Brent Elliott and Roger Bowdler, The British Cemetery: Architecture, Landscape, Sculpture (London: Historic England, 2026), 544 pages, ISBN: 978-1836245964, £50 / $85.

Covering 1700–2020, this book is the first major study of the British cemetery, tracing the rise of these new landscapes of remembrance from early modern times to the present. Victorian cemeteries drew on the Georgian churchyard tradition and a long-established interest in the burial customs of antiquity. New commercial opportunities were seized as church controls ended, with fast-growing urban populations demanding space for their dead. The results were magnificent: new combinations of layout, planting and myriad memorials arose, reflecting the eclectic taste and religious mood of the times. Virgin land on the edge of towns was adapted to receive mass burials, and the mason’s trade expanded rapidly to supply the growing market for family memorials. Chapters based on new research look at the evolution of buildings, planting, and tombs. Contemporary comments are extensively cited, and a picture emerges of these complex places, seething with family loss and communal memory. From grand mausoleum to humble burial plot, this survey casts light on all varieties of grave, and brings the story up to the present day.

Brent Elliott, formerly Librarian at the Royal Horticultural Society, member of the Victorian Society’s Buildings Committee, has been a committee member or trustee for Kensal Green, West Norwood, and Highgate Cemeteries.
Roger Bowdler worked at English Heritage/Historic England from 1989 to 2018 as a historian and Director of Listing. A specialist in commemorative art, he has written on church monuments, churchyards, mausolea, and war memorials.