Abney Park, one of London’s ‘Magnificent Seven’ Victorian cemeteries, is to receive £5m from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the National Lottery Community Fund and Hackney Council for renovation. The project will begin this month.
The money will be used to restore the interior of the chapel, to build a new classroom and a new café at the main entrance. There will also be a new accessible entrance on Stoke Newington Church Street.
Once a working cemetery, Stoke Newington’s woodland memorial park and Local Nature Reserve is assessed as a Grade II park on Historic England’s parks and gardens of historical worth.
Mayor of Hackney Philip Glanville said: “Radicals, anti-slavery campaigners and dissenters all form part of its incredible history, which the new cafe, classroom and restored chapel will help to open up to more people and generate income towards the ongoing improvement of the park.”
The National Heritage Fund and The National Lottery Community Fund will contribute £4.4m, and the remaining £710,000 will be added by the Hackney Council, which owns and manages the site.
Green roofs and walls will deck the new buildings of the park, which was called a ‘magical urban woodland’ by Tom Walker, Chair of Abney Park Trust. The task will create a new lawn with a variety of species and grassland meadow plots, adding to what is already a highly biodiverse space.
“The project has been carefully thought through to deliver greater visitor amenity without compromising Abney’s valuable ecology,” said Russell Miller, a Biodiversity Consultant to Hackney Council. “I’m looking forward to seeing the new flower rich green roof and grass area which will provide essential forage for Abney’s 40 species of bees as well as other insects like butterflies.”
Abney Park Chapel was the first non-denominational cemetery chapel in Europe, designed by the influential Victorian architect William Hosking. It was restored in 2017 from the damage done by fire and vandalism in the 1980’s, and now the interior of the chapel will be renovated with new amenities.
Lead image is “Abney Park Cemetery” by tullio dainese licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
