The Magnificent Seven Cemeteries

Published 21 September 2026 · By the Guide to London editorial team · Editor: Terje Moy

Seven large private cemeteries were laid out in a ring around London between 1833 and 1841, because the city's churchyards had run out of room. Six of them are free to walk into. Only Highgate charges. They are now some of the quietest and most overgrown green space in the capital, and several are still burying people, which is the thing visitors most often forget.

The name "Magnificent Seven" is a modern label, coined in the 1980s, not a Victorian one. The seven are Kensal Green, West Norwood, Highgate, Abney Park, Brompton, Nunhead and Tower Hamlets. They were built as commercial ventures and laid out like landscape gardens, with avenues, chapels, catacombs and specimen trees, and they were expected to make money.

Highgate has its own page here, because it works differently from the other six: it charges admission, and the West Cemetery can only be seen on a guided tour. Read our guide to Highgate Cemetery for that one. This page covers the other six, which you can simply walk into.

Kensal Green: the first, and the grandest

Kensal Green opened in 1833 and was London's first commercial cemetery. Parliament had incorporated the General Cemetery Company the year before, and the company ran a design competition won by Henry Edward Kendall for a Gothic scheme. The chairman preferred neo-classical, so the surveyor John Griffith redrew it in the Greek Revival style, which is what was built.

The ground was divided in two: 39 acres consecrated for Anglicans and 15, clearly separated, for Dissenters. Catacombs built to hold about 2,000 coffins run along part of the northern boundary wall under a Greek colonnade. Burials of the Duke of Sussex in 1843 and his sister Princess Sophia established it as a society cemetery, and the layout, influenced by Père-Lachaise in Paris, made it the model the other six followed.

The site covers 72 acres including the West London Crematorium, added in 1939. The Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery, founded in 1989, led the restoration of the Dissenters' Chapel, completed in 1997, and run guided tours on selected Sundays at 2pm. Tickets cost £12, or £10 for students, over-65s and English Heritage members, and are free to Friends. Groups are capped at 20, online booking closes just after midnight on the day of the tour, and there is only a tour at all if someone has booked online.

The cemetery closes without notice when winds of 45 to 55mph or above are forecast. The official postcode covers all 72 acres and is not much use to a driver or a taxi; the company suggests NW10 5NU for the crematorium end.

Brompton: the one that is a royal park

Brompton Cemetery opened in 1840 and is the only one of the seven run by the Royal Parks, which makes it the best maintained and the easiest to visit. Pedestrian gates are open from 7am to 7pm. Over 200,000 people are buried here, and in recent years it has returned to use, with new burials taking place.

The layout is the most formal of the seven: Central Avenue runs the length of the site between lime trees to the chapel, with the colonnades of the Great Circle framing the view. There is a café at North Lodge at the northern end and an information centre staffed by volunteers, which is unusual for a cemetery and useful if you are looking for a particular grave.

The two names most visitors come for are Emmeline Pankhurst, the suffragette leader, and John Snow, the physician who demonstrated that cholera spread through infected water. The site is also managed for wildlife, with birds, butterflies, bats and beetles among the monuments. It sits between Earl's Court and Fulham, covered in our guide to Earl's Court and West Brompton.

West Norwood: the Greek one

West Norwood opened in 1837 as the South Metropolitan Cemetery, and Lambeth Council took over its management in 1965. Forty acres hold more than 65 listed monuments, which is the highest concentration of the seven, and the Hellenic Enclosure is internationally significant: a separate Greek Orthodox burial ground with its own chapel and mausolea, built for the Greek merchant families of 19th-century London.

The names buried here are a roll-call of Victorian commerce and invention: Isabella Beeton of the household management book, Sir Henry Tate of the sugar business and the gallery, Sir Henry Doulton of the pottery, the preacher Charles Spurgeon, and Dr William Marsden, who founded two London hospitals.

The gates are locked fifteen minutes before the posted closing time, with exit only after that, and the chapel complex is locked thirty minutes before. Lambeth also warns that construction work restricts access to some areas. The Friends of West Norwood Cemetery run guided tours on the first Sunday of every month; the council lists these as starting at 2.30pm in the April to October part of the year and at 11am from November to March, so confirm the time with the Friends before setting out.

Nunhead: the most overgrown

Nunhead opened as All Saints' Cemetery in July 1840 and now holds around 270,000 burials. It is the wildest of the seven: a formal avenue of tall limes near the Linden Grove entrance gives way to paths that feel like country lanes, and the site is a designated nature reserve. The Anglican chapel survives as a stabilised ruin, and there are two neo-classical gate lodges at the main entrance.

The Friends of Nunhead Cemetery run guided tours that are free to join and need no booking unless the listing says otherwise, covering general history, the crypt and chapel, Black history and, in October, the London Month of the Dead. Their annual Open Day is the biggest event in the cemetery's year, and the 2027 one is set for Saturday 15 May, 11am to 5pm.

Getting there is easier than it looks. Direct trains run from Victoria and Blackfriars to Nunhead station every day, and the Linden Grove gates are under ten minutes away on foot. Buses P12 and 78 pass the far end of Linden Grove, and 343 and 484 stop near the Limesford Road gate. The surrounding area is covered in our guide to Peckham.

Abney Park: free, wild and not a working cemetery

Abney Park in Stoke Newington opened in 1840 and was non-denominational from the start, which made it the burial ground of choice for Nonconformists, campaigners and, later, Salvation Army founders. It is now run by the Abney Park Trust, with Hackney Council responsible for the trees and memorials.

It is open every day of the year, including Christmas Day and New Year's Day, from 8am until dusk, with closing times published in fortnightly blocks: 7pm in early September, dropping to 4pm from 2 November to 31 December. There is no entry fee. The Trust closes the park for public safety whenever a yellow wind warning covers London.

Unlike most of the others, Abney Park is not a working cemetery: no new burial plots are available. Dogs are allowed, provided they are kept in sight and under control, which is not true everywhere on this list. Accessible toilets are in the Sable café building on the right of the forecourt as you come in from Stoke Newington High Street, and you do not have to go through the café to reach them.

The main High Street entrance has level access and the Church Street entrance has a ramp and wider paths. The internal drive from the main gate is cobbled, and the smaller paths are narrow, uneven and slippery after rain. Stoke Newington railway station is 200 metres from the High Street gate; buses 73, 393 and 476 serve the Church Street side. See our guide to Dalston and Stoke Newington for what else is nearby.

Tower Hamlets: the last one, and now a nature reserve

Tower Hamlets Cemetery opened in 1841, the last of the seven, on Southern Grove in Bow. Locals called it Bow Cemetery. Burials stopped in the 1960s and the site is now managed as Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park: 33 acres of nature reserve with meadows, glades, woodland walks and a pond, holding a Green Flag Award and run day to day by the Friends of Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park, who organise the events programme.

It is the least manicured of the six and the one that feels least like a cemetery, because the memorials are inside a wood rather than on lawns. The council lists the main Southern Grove entrance as the way in; the Friends' own website was not reachable from our research connection when we checked, so look up current opening and event times through the council page or the Friends directly. The surrounding area is covered in our guide to Whitechapel and the East End.

How to visit without being the visitor everyone resents

These are not parks, even where they look like parks, and they are not film sets. The practical rules are short. Stay on the paths, because leaning monuments fall. Do not climb on tombs or move anything. Keep away from funerals, and if you meet one, stop and wait. Take litter home. In the three that allow dogs, keep them on the paths and clear up.

Photography for your own use is fine in all six. Commercial shoots are not, without permission from the owner, and each of the six has a different owner: a private company at Kensal Green, the Royal Parks at Brompton, Lambeth and Southwark councils at West Norwood and Nunhead, a charitable trust at Abney Park, and Tower Hamlets Council at Bow.

Which one to choose

If you want only one, Kensal Green on a Sunday with a Friends tour booked gives you the most, because the guides open up the parts you would otherwise walk past. If you want only one and cannot plan ahead, Brompton. And if the Victorian way of death is the theme of the trip, the wall of tablets at Postman's Park commemorates the same generation from a completely different angle, while the blue plaque scheme marks where many of the people buried here lived.

All six are free, which puts them on our list of things worth doing in London for nothing. They are at their best in late October, when the leaves turn and the light is low, and our October guide covers what else is on. For green space of a less funereal kind in the same parts of London, see the big south London estates and London's urban nature reserves. If you would rather have the stories told to you after dark, our page on ghost tours in London explains which ones are worth the money.

Frequently asked questions

Which are the Magnificent Seven cemeteries in London?

Kensal Green (1833), West Norwood (1837), Highgate (1839), Abney Park (1840), Brompton (1840), Nunhead (1840) and Tower Hamlets (1841). They were built as commercial cemeteries in a ring around the edge of the city because London's parish churchyards were full.

Are the Magnificent Seven cemeteries free to visit?

Six of them are. Highgate charges admission and runs its West Cemetery by guided tour only. Kensal Green is free to walk into but its Friends charge £12, or £10 concession, for their Sunday guided tours. Nunhead's tours are free and need no booking unless the listing says otherwise.

Are people still buried in these cemeteries?

In several of them, yes. Brompton has returned to use as a working cemetery, Kensal Green operates alongside a crematorium, and West Norwood has a small number of re-used graves available. Abney Park and Tower Hamlets no longer offer new burials. Treat all of them as places where families come to visit graves.

Which Magnificent Seven cemetery is easiest to reach from central London?

Brompton, which sits between Earl's Court and Fulham and has pedestrian gates open from 7am to 7pm. Nunhead is next easiest, with direct trains from Victoria and Blackfriars and a walk of under ten minutes. Abney Park is 200 metres from Stoke Newington railway station.

Can you take a dog into London's Victorian cemeteries?

It varies by site. Abney Park allows dogs provided they are kept in sight and under control and their waste is picked up. Others are stricter or do not permit them at all. Check the owner's own page before you travel, and keep any dog on the paths and away from funerals.

Sources

• Kensal Green Cemetery - Opening times and directions (checked September 2026)
• Kensal Green Cemetery - History (checked September 2026)
• Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery - Tour booking and prices (checked September 2026)
• The Royal Parks - Brompton Cemetery (checked September 2026)
• Lambeth Council - West Norwood Cemetery (checked September 2026)
• Friends of Nunhead Cemetery - Visitor information and tours (checked September 2026)
• Abney Park Trust - Visiting Abney Park (checked September 2026)
• London Borough of Tower Hamlets - Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park (checked September 2026)