Streatham Cemetery

[Clive Maier]

As you may have seen elsewhere in the forum, I have been fossicking around Streatham Cemetery to do a non-war grave lookup for a Pal. It was an interesting experience but I was dismayed by the poor condition of the cemetery.

It is one of the massive metropolitan graveyards that were opened in Victorian times, in response to the overcrowding and closing of church graveyards throughout London. Streatham was one of the later ones, opened in 1893 and later extended to the south-east. It is now closed to burials. It was clearly a grand place in its time, with a long stone-walled frontage on Garratt Lane, an office cum gatehouse, and two drive-through chapels.

The cemetery has clearly been neglected for some time. The office and chapels are closed and locked, and the remoter parts abound with subsiding graves and capsized headstones. The paths are crumbling and moss covered, and many statues have been decapitated by vandals. Shrubbery has run wild over some graves. The shelter of one runaway rhododendron now serves as a rough-sleeper’s bivouac. The grass is coarse and tussocky from infrequent cutting. Many plots are no longer marked, and the only help in navigation is a small yellowing map in the window of a hut near the entrance. An undated notice alongside it apologises for the condition of the cemetery, but the context suggests that it is at least a year old. The subtexts of other notices leave one in no doubt that enquiries are burdensome.

Gaps in the cemetery testify to lawnification. This non-word is apparently the accepted term for the process of clearing away gravestones and monuments, filling in subsidence, and covering the area with grass. However, the standard of care has been such that the cemetery has nothing remotely resembling a lawn. I have since learned that lawnification went on from 1969 to 1991, and that “many thousands of monuments” were removed.

On the credit side, contractors have recently moved in and are securing gravestones in the foremost plots with stakes. The effect is unlovely but it is better than neglect. The belated attention is welcome but I feel it owes more to health and safety than to a proper burden of care for the interred and their relatives.

I was looking for a civilian burial so I had not given war graves any thought. I soon found some though. On checking now with the CWGC site, I find that there are almost 380 war graves in the cemetery. There is a fine Cross of Sacrifice with a screen wall, and a group of graves in block 17. Many other isolated burials are scattered throughout the cemetery. What I really wanted to say is that amid all the neglect, the CWGC stones are clean, bright and bolt upright.

Well done CWGC, yet again.