It was the hottest day of the year so far when we met for London by Foot's second (in a series of three) Magnificent Seven cemetery walks at Imperial Wharf station and nobody was complaining that it was to be a shorter walk than Good Friday's stroll around West Norwood or Nunhead or the soon to come epic trek that will take in Tower Hamlets, Abney Park, and Highgate.
We'd lost Pam, Colin, Sue, Stuart, and Kathy but we'd regained Shep, Tina, and Neil W - and, of course, myself - your slightly absent minded administrator. We'd also been joined by TADS regulars Neil B, Belinda, and Eamon - and, for the first time since Carl's appearance on March's Leaside wander somebody had responded to my Facebook page and turned up who didn't know us. Emma was a welcome addition who was so friendly and easy to get along with that within half an hour of the walk I'd almost forgotten she wasn't an old friend. Let's hope she can join us again.
Once we'd all said hello and grabbed some free water we headed out towards Chelsea Harbour, with its impressive views of Battersea Railway Bridge, kooky fish statue, and almost complete lack of people. With the sun blaring down and the fancy apartments surrounding us we could almost have been on the Med. Although with a valet attending to a Merc with a 1JT personalised number plate the thought that former Chelsea and England defender, philanderer, and racist John Terry may be around brought us very much back to London.
We passed the Chelsea Harbour Hotel, crossed Chelsea Creek, and, after speculating as to the age and architectural style of a brown brick industrial looking building, carried along down Lots Road, stuck our noses in a window of a shop full of expensive looking candles and chandeliers and crossed Westfield Park and then the King's Road. It wasn't long before we'd reached Brompton Cemetery.
A beautiful space, even with Stamford Bridge stadium looming large over its west aspect. This area of London doesn't seem as blessed with green spaces as other parts so many were taking advantage of the cemetery to sunbathe and walk dogs - and there was even a cute little cafe at either end of the large rectangular plot.
I used my new SEEK app on my phone to identify some flowers but the sight of a stretched out squirrel and a crow posing on a grave, as if conjured from the imagination of Edgar Allan Poe, soon took precedence.
Brompton was laid out in 1839 with 35,000 monuments marking more than 200,000 resting places. Its domed central chapel (c/o Benjamin Baud) is a modest riff on St.Peter's in Rome but it still looked pretty spectacular under the flaming June skies.
The graveyard suffered some bomb damage in World War II but that's only given it a more romantic feel. I found a spot and, as Shep checked his watch, I commenced with a brief bit of spiel about the cemetery.
Notable internees include:-
Henry Cole (1808-1882), the Bath born founder of the V&A, Royal Albert Hall, Royal College of Music, and the Great Exhibition who also invented the Christmas card!
Samuel Cunard (1787-1865), the Nova Scotia born shipping magnate.
Kit Lambert (1935-1981), manager of The Who but also associated with Jimi Hendrix, Marc Bolan, Fairport Convention, Shakin' Stevens, and Billy Idol's pre-Generation X outfit Chelsea.
Bernard Levin (1928-2004), author and broadcaster.
Emmeline Pankhurst (1858-1928), the Moss Side born Suffragette.
Samuel Smiles (1812-1904), the East Lothian born inventor of 'self-help'.
John Snow (1813-1858), the anaesthetist and epidemioligist who proved the link between infected water and cholera.
John Wisden (1826-1884), the Brighton born founder of the famous cricketing almanac.
Sir Arthur Sullivan was to be buried in Brompton until Queen Victoria intervened and insisted he was interred, instead, in St Paul's Cathedral but Beatrix Potter, who lived nearby, is said to have found much inspiration in this boneyard. She used to walk in Brompton regularly and it's rumoured that some of her characters were inspired by inscriptions she read for the likes of Mr Nutkins, Mr Brock, Jeremiah Fisher, and Peter Rabbett - though presumably not Mrs Tiggy-Winkle. The cemetery also has a reputation as a popular cruising spot for gay men.
In the 1880s Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show was on at Earl's Court and several First Nations American perfomers died. Long Wolf and Paul Eagle Star were buried in Brompton and then, more than a century later, exhumed and reburied in South Dakota but it's said that White Star, Little Chief, and Red Penny are still resident.
We had a nose around but we couldn't find their graves - or, indeed, many of the other 'celebrities'. Determined to find just one we spotted the final resting place of Emmeline Pankhurst which is no doubt one of the best anyway. It didn't matter that we didn't find the others as it was just lovely and pleasant to have a general nose around taking in headless statues, strange horizontal crosses, and winged angels as the sun continued to beat down and turn my skin ever browner.
Just before we emptied out on to Old Brompton Road, through a splendid arch, we read a couple of stories. One was about Albert Dredge who, three days before his second marriage, heard his first wife call him from the grave. He visited her grave and shot himself. A note of apology to his fiancee was found in his pocket.
More macabre still was the tale of labourer William Rogers who impaled himself on a spike while 'larking about' in the cemetery and died in hospital a few days later. I'd said before that cemeteries aren't bleak places but the curators of Brompton seem to be doing their best to prove me wrong.
There was now a bit of residential street walking ahead of us but it was livened up by that weird white faced thing (second picture below) and Eamon generously treating everybody to a Cornetto from Tesco. That kept us entertained and cooled down until we reached Holland Park.
Holland Park, a lovely spot, houses The Design Museum (the former Commonwealth Institute, which moved from its former home near Tower Bridge in 2016 after being developed by John Pawson) and Holland House, a former manor house now in ruins following WWII bombing. There's a nice little cafe I'd visited with my friend Adam in February 2017 but its best feature is surely its stunning Kyoto Garden, a place introduced to me by another friend, Sanda, last year.
The peacock was strutting more then and looked a bit bedraggled on this visit but the waterfall, the fish, and the tranquility made it an idyllic spot for a picnic, a romantic afternoon, or just a nice sleep in the sunshine. Shep looked none too impressed with the peacock. He's a waterfowl man through and through.
Disappointed that my friends had not been as impressed by the Kyoto Garden as I had been we left the park, had a nose at the Consulate General of Greece, paid our quick respects to Volodymr the Great, Grand Prince of Kiev, and went to the pub for a well earned beverage. Nobody complained about that and nobody complained about sitting inside either.
It was a cold lager day and one pint soon became two (there were bad influences at play) in The Eagle. It was a lovely, relaxed pit stop and was only slightly marred by me accidentally opening up a cubicle door as a man was still doing his 'paperwork'. "Alright" he said, which seemed a bit odd in the circumstances!
We made our way towards Ladbroke Grove, past pastel shaded houses and a bright yellow Fiat, for a longish straight final stretch down and then up and under the Westway into Kensal Green. This area, carnival aside - the main procession heads this way, has very strong musical links. Hawkwind, The Pink Fairies, Rita Ora, The Clash, AJ Tracey, All Saints, and, of course, World Domination Enterprises are all associated with Ladbroke Grove. Micheal Moorcock writes of it often.
The paddling pool looked tempting, the bouncy castle less so. The views of Trellick were impressive, the views of Grenfell a tragic reminder of what an unequal society we still live in. You can get a real feel for this walking one end of Ladbroke Grove to the other. On the south side the houses are like wedding cakes but by the time you reach the northern end it's all fast food joints and graffiti. Oh, and the Innocent smoothies HQ and a rather fetching wooden building on stilts that caught our eye and had us speculating as to its purpose. A house? Office space? Bond villain headquarters?
You cross the canal, you find out that God (apparently) rules, and you soon enter into Kensal Green cemetery. Number two on this walk and number four in this series.
Inspired by Pere Lachaise in Paris, it opened in 1833 and was immortalised by GK Chesterton in the poem that tops this blog. It contains a few Grecian style buildings but its character is primarily Gothic and it featured in the 1973 film Theatre of Blood starring Vincent Price and Diana Rigg.
Notable burials include:-
Charles Blondin (1824-1897), the French tightrope walker who crossed Niagara Gorge and died in Ealing.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859), the Portsmouth born civil engineer whose great projects included the SS Great Britain (now in Bristol), the SS Great Western, the SS Great Eastern (both no more), the Thames Tunnel between Rotherhithe and Wapping (which I still use regularly), the Clifton Suspension Bridge, the Royal Albert Bridge across the Tamar, and the Great Western Railway.
Marc Isambard Brunel (1769-1849). IKB's dad was born in Normandy and though he's not as famous as his son, the Thames Tunnel, at least, was his baby.
Decimus Burton (1800-1881), the architect responsible for the Wellington Arch, Carlton House Terrace, Hyde Park Corner, Kew Gardens, parts of London Zoo, and some of Tunbridge Wells.
Wilkie Collins (1824-1889), the author of The Woman in White.
Philmore 'Boots' Davison (1928-1993), the Trinidadian who introduced the steel band to Britain. It seems apt that he's buried within earshot of carnival.
Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957), the Vorticist painter and editor of BLAST!
Harold Pinter (1930-2008):- The Birthday Party, The Caretaker.
Sir Terence Rattigan (1911-1977):- The Winslow Boy.
William Henry Smith (1792-1865) who ran newsagents and bookshops. You can probably guess what his shops are called now. They sell overpriced crisps and bottles of water at train stations mainly.
William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863), the Calcutta born author of Vanity Fair.
Steve Peregrin Took (1949-1980). Marc Bolan's partner in Tyrannosaurus Rex died aged 31 in Notting Hill after a morphine OD. Drugs 'misadventure' or suicide? The jury, it seems, is still out.
Anthony Trollope (1815-1882), the Monken Hadley lad who wrote The Chronicles of Barsetshire.
Charles Babbage (1791-1871) who is considered by some the 'father of the computer'.
There's a few notable cremations too. People like Ingrid Bergman (1915-1982), Freddie Mercury (1946-1991), Alan Rickman (1946-2016), and Uxbridge lass Christine Keeler (1942-2017).
We had a look around, checking out views of gasholders, caryatids, and knobbly old graves. We even spotted a fox cub running along. Kensal Green is vast so we could never hope to see it all (and we didn't fancy getting locked in for the night) but we, as with Brompton, decided we needed to find at least one of the more famous internees so we set our sights on IKB's plot and using a combination of GPS, OS map, and, get this, our own eyes, we damned well found it.
That's it below. That's the family plot. There's plenty of Brunels in there. It's not as impressive as we expected but I guess if you want to see Brunel's main legacy you go to Bristol or something. Might do that again soon ;-)
After that it was time for us to go to paradise by way of Kensal Green ourselves and by that I don't mean we were collectively throwing a seven. No, instead we repaired to the charming, if a little odd, Paradise by Way of Kensal Green pub where one drink became two and soon three.
Emma left and the seven remaining, and now somewhat refreshed, explorers repaired to Curry Nights where, unannounced, they were joined by their old friend Ian 'TC' Stocks. More beer and some of the reddest paneer shashlik followed and I, perhaps daftly, headed off into the night with Ian for more shenanigans which included seeing a man walk down the road with a large, and very much alive, snake slung over his shoulder.
When I woke up on Ian's couch the next morning I didn't feel too bright but I did feel happy that, once again, we'd manage to execute a fun, educational, and interesting walk. Thanks to everyone who joined me and hopefully see some of you again soon for the third, and final, stage of this trilogy. Promoted to glory!
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