Abney Park in Stoke Newington, London, formerly one of the ‘magnificent seven’ garden cemeteries of London, is now a woodland memorial park and Local Nature Reserve managed by the Abney Park Trust. We offer free public access, and educational facilities - including a small stone carving workshop, training centre/ classroom, and visitors centre.

Please click on the links in the title bar at the top of this page to visit our pages about history and ecology, or for details of services, events, courses and facilities.

A brief Introduction...

The park originated in the eighteenth century when the land was laid out by Lady Mary Abney.

It was, for many years, home to Dr Isaac Watts, the ‘father of hymnology’,whose ‘Busy Little Bee’ and ‘O God our help in ages past’ are well known today.

By the early nineteenth century, the grounds were used, in part, by a novel Quaker school for girls founded by William Allen and Grizelle Birkbeck.

However its most well-know land-use dates from 1840, when a unique non-denominational garden cemetery was laid out with a remarkable A to Z arboretum, and a small Wesleyan training college. Its centre-piece, the Abney Park Chapel, was deigned to be a landmark to religious toleration, being open to all. It formed a dramatic centre-piece, overlooking a well timbered landscape and specialist planting by Loddiges Nursery.

The original trust cemetery was sold to a commercial company in the 1880s, who ran it for almost a hundred years until, it closed in 1978. Since 1991 the park has been managed by the Abney Park Trust as a nature reserve, educational facility, and memorial park, in partnership with the freeholder, the London Borough of Hackney.

There is free public access during daylight hours, and two of the park’s public walks form a section of the London strategic walking route - the ‘Capital Ring’. The park is a popular as a film location, and through the work of the Trust, a wide range of educational courses, guided walks, arts events, family history searches, woodland crafts, and stone carving workshops, are made available.

...more about the park

In its hey day the Abney Park Cemetery was ‘the most ornamental garden cemetery in the vicinity of London’ (q.v. John Loudon). 

As Bunhill Fields in the City of London became full, Abney Park took over its role as the principal place of memorial for prominent London Congregationalists, Baptists and other nonconformists, including many abolitionists authors and missionaries. In Robert Southey’s words, Abney Park became ‘the Campo Santa of Dissenters’ of the nineteenth century, whilst Bunhill Fields earnt this sobriquet for its eighteenth century memorials.

The fortunes of the cemetery began to decline after the First World War, but before this time popular Music Hall stars, and the founders of the Salvation Army - and William and Catherine Booth - chose to be buried here. Joanna Vassa, daughter of the black author and abolitionist Olaudah Equiano,is also buried here; as is the black author and playwright Eric Walrond. Music Hall and variety artistes  include Albert Chavalier and George Leybourne. Chartists include James Bronterre O’Brien, Henry Vincent and Banjamin Lucraft. Prominent nonconformists (ministers, missionaries authors and abolitionists), include Dr Newman Hall, Dr John Pye Smith, Dr Andrew Reed, Dr Thomas Binney, William Brock, James Sherman, Emily Gosse, Thomas Burchell and Samuel Oughton. Horticulturists include James Shirley Hibberd and Conrad Loddiges. Educational philanthropists include Sir Hugh Owen and Samuel Morley.

In recent years the wooded memorial estate has been managed by the Abney Park Trust under a lease and Memorandum of Understanding with Hackney Council. It was designated an Historic Park and Garden in the 1980s, and became Hackney’s first Local Nature Reserve in the early 1990s. The nature reserve is home to  many butterflies, with dappled glades supporting the largest breeding population of Speckled Wood butterflies this close to the centre of London. The grounds are equally rich in birdlife, providing habitat for breeding populations of Green Woodpeckers, Tawny Owls, Firecrests, Bullfinches and Nuthatch in a green oasis, or rich flora, of woodland trees, flowering plants and fungi.

useful links ...

Searchable Index of burials by Surname

Hackney Archives

Revd Dr Stephen Otchard, Gresham College - Christian Philanthropy in London 1830-1850

Wikipedia - Abney Park Cemetery, Abney Park Chapel, Abney Park, Burials at Abney Park Cemetery

Youtube, Abney Park Cemetery - A Gem Lost in Time video, Abney Park, London 2008 video

The Independent - Postcode from the edge: Abney’s hidden treasure

Londontown.com - Abney Park Cemetery & Nature Reserve

Londonisfree - Abney Park Cemetery

English Heritage - Parks & Gardens case studies, Abney Park Cemetery

Garden&Green - Places in Peril, Abney Park Cemetery

Black Environment Network -    Greenspace of the Month Feb 2004

BBC Breathing Places - Abney Park

BBC London - Abney Park Cemetery

Capital Ring - Interesting Places, Abney Park Cemetery video link

Discover Hackney

Hackney Council for Voluntary Service