Publication Summaries

A SHORT GUIDE TO NUNHEAD CEMETERY:

The Friends of Nunhead Cemetery published the very first comprehensive illustrated guidebook to the Nunhead Cemetery of All Saints in 1988; this was followed by a revised edition in 1995. Both editions were best-sellers and are now regrettably out of print

Much has happened at Nunhead since the publication of the last edition, including replacement of the boundary railings and the restoration of the historic core of the cemetery in he new millennium year.

This new consise guide, carefully edited and updated by husband and wife team, FONC committee member Time Stevenson and vice-chairman Carol Stevenson, includes much useful and interesting information abridged from articles that appeared in earlier guides, together with new and current information. This hand guidebook, therefore, is essential reading for al visitors to the Historic and beautiful Nunhead Cemetery.

A5 softback, 30 pages with illustrations.

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NUNHEAD CEMETERY – A Colourful History
by Fay Rogers and Cathy Mercer

This colouring book provides an introduction to Nunhead Cemetery for the very young.

By tracing the stories of the cemetery's colourful past through these drawings, young readers will be absorbing social history and will hopefully develop a love of nature through exploring the large woodland area that is Nunhead Cemetery.

A4 softback, 20 pages with illustrations.

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NUNHEAD & THE MUSIC HALL:
by Rex Batten

From the middle of the nineteenth century, until the cinema supplanted it, the Music Hall was popular entertainment. It's successor, Variety, was to continue the tradition until the 1960s when television finally killed the popular provincial theatre. It is ironic that Nunhead Cemetery flourished and died over the same time span.

This book, Nunhead and the Music Hall, is a collection of pictures and biographical details telling the stories of famous Music Hall personalities buried in Nunhead Cemetery, including a Proprietor, a Song Writer, A Lady Singer, a Superstar and more.

A4 softback, 40 pages with illustrations (some colour).

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TREES & SHRUBS OF NUNHEAD CEMETERY:
by Carol Stevenson

Nunhead Cemetery comes as a surprise to a visitor who expects the mown grass of a lawn cemetery!

Opened in 1840, Nunhead was planted in a formal style, but over time, neglect and nature took over. Now the London Borough of Southwark and the Friends of Nunhead Cemetery work together to maintain the cemetery, keeping it's woodland look in the nature reserve and making appropriate new plantings.

The wide range of exotic and native plants reflects the Cemetery's history, and this book will help you identify some of the many species of trees and shrubs growing in it.

A5 softback, 50 pages with illustrations.

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THE BUTTERFLIES OF NUNHEAD CEMETERY:
by Richard A. Jones.

Visitors to Nunhead Cemetery find, not a closely cropped lawn with rows of neat grave-stones, but a woodland. Sun-dappled paths lead past ancient trees and banks of flowering bramble. Every so often the tracks emerge into sunny clearings and open grassy spaces. The air is alive with the shrill songs of birds and the buzzing of insects. Nunhead's green and pleasant cemetery is now a tranquil wilderness in the heart of London.

Wildlife abounds here. Sixteen species of butterfly have been found and several others have probably been overlooked. This illustrated book contains details of the butterflies likely to be seen in this beautiful Victorian Cemetery from the Speckled Wood to the White-letter Hairstreak.

A5 softback, 32 pages with photos and illustrations.

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NUNHEAD NOTABLES:
by Ron Woollacott.

This new edition of Nunhead Notables (printed May 2002), together with More Nunhead Notables (see below), gives an insight into the lives of 400 interesting personalities that were laid to rest in Nuhead Cemetery between 1840 and 1998. At least 50 of them have entries in the Dictionary of National Biography, and many more are featured in Frederick Boase's Modern English Biography.

This enlarged version has been updated to include a number of biographical sketches that were ommited from the original version and the sequel which followed it, due to lack of space. Each of the original entries have been rewritten and updated, amending the text where necessary and providing additional information including grave and square numbers.

A5 softback, 110 pages with photos and illustrations.

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MORE NUNHEAD NOTABLES:
by Ron Woollacott.

A second selection of personalities who lie buried at Nunhead, extraordinary people who, in their varying ways, have contributed much to the arts and sciences, religion and politics, medicine and welfare, sport and entertainment, which is of great significance well beyond the boundaries of Greater London.

From the very first entry, Charles Abbott, the 101 year old Ipswich Grocer and Charterhouse brother, to the last on the volunteer soldier who became a Canon of Lahore Cathedral, this is a fascinating gathering of personalities from all walks of life, and from all parts of the United Kingdom. On the way through the following pages we will descover a Scotsman who became an African explorer, another who fought in the American Civil War, an Irish freethinker, a French Huguenot marquis, an inventive Admiral, and a dashing dragoon who rode in the Charge of the Light Brigade and lived to tell the tale, toghther with daring heroes who fought at the battles of Trafalgar and Waterloo, and a gallant airman who lost his life chasing an enemy Zepplin across the skies of London. Among the many remarkable women we encounter on the way, there is an actress, two novelists, a poet, the leader of a religious sect, and others whose only claim to fame is that they lived on this Earth for one hundred years or more.

Most of the people whose lives are featured in this brand new collection of potted biographies were well known in their time, some were even quite famous, now they lie, virtually forgotten, in overgrown and unmarked graves or beneath neglected and decaying tombstones. This little book is dedicated to their memory.

Ron Woollacott.

A5 softback, 84 pages with illustrations.

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NUNHEAD REMEMBERED:
by Rex Batten.

Sheltered under forest trees, where snowdrops and bluebells welcome the spring, a quarter of a million Londoners lie buried. Nunhead Remembered is a collection of anecdotes and stories of those people. It is as rich as the harvest of blackberries that end the summer in the peace of All Saints Cemetery, Nunhead.

In the nature of things this book can represent only a fraction of Nunhead's memories. But we do have the small boy who all alone fought the armies of the dead, the fearless police and the fearsome phantom, the little girl and entombed undertaker's men, a day's outing for a python and souvenirs of a notorious murderer.

There is also a beautifully remembered motorised funeral in the twenties and a vivid description of the cemetery under snow.

Account of religious divisions, the gulf between rich and poor are intermixed with anecdotes of love and a little sadness. But Nunhead is the resting place of Londoners and humour can never be far away.

This collection reflects the diversity of the century and a half of Nunhead's history.

A5 softback, with photos and illustrations.

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THE WALWORTH SCOUTS:
by Rex Batten.

It was more than thirty years after the scouts' memorial in Nunhead Cemetery had been vandalised that the telephone rang in the office of the Archivist at Scout Headquarters. The Archivist, Paul Moynihan, answered. The caller had a query. Nothing unusual in that, but the question the caller asked was odd: “Was a Percy Baden Powell Huxford any relation to Lord Baden Powell, the founder of Scouting?”

“Not that I'm aware of,” was the immediate reaction. Then Paul hesitated. The name Huxford rang a bell. The Friends of Nunhead Cemetery had worked closely with the Scout Association in researching the Leysdown Tragedy and Percy Huxford was the name of one of the boys drowned. But that did not answer the question. From where had the caller got the Baden Powell connection? The obvious thing to do was to keep the caller talking until Paul could find out what he was talking about.

What transpired proved to be a remarkable piece of history.

A5 softback, 26 pages with photos.

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THE VICTORIAN CATACOMBS AT NUNHEAD:
by Ron Woollacott.

A short history and description of the various catacombs in Nunhead Cemetery, including a complete as possible list of those buried within them, including the human remains exhumed from the site of St. Christopher-le-Stocks, London.

A5 softback, 34 pages with photos and illustrations.

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THE SCOTTISH MARTYRS:
by Wally MacFarlane.

One of the most intriguing memorials in South London's Nunhead Cemetery is the obelisk dedicated to five political reformers of the 18th century who became known as the Scottish Martyrs. The story of these men, who put the cause of political justice before their own lives, as told by Wally Macfarlane, is a timely reminder of the price paid for universal suffrage.

The setting for this memorial is perhaps the least known but most attractive of the great Victorian burial grounds of London. As well as the Scottish Martyrs memorial, Nunhead Cemetery contains many other magnificent monuments erected in memory of the most eminent citizens of the day, which contrast sharply with the small simple headstones marking common, or public, burials. Its formal avenue of towering limes and the Gothic gloom of the original Victorian planting gives way to paths which recall the country lanes of a bygone era.

A5 softback, with illustrations.

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