Abney Park Cemetery, London, England

[lighthouse]

I live in Canada.  Hoping someone is able to trek out to this cemetery to look at 2 headstones.  I have a Charles and Bridget Crowder buried there.  They are husband and wife  He dies 1855 she dies 1858.  Both burials are in section E04.  Bridget's is burial number 022017.  Hoping there is a transcription on Bridget's tombstone.  Hoping to find more information on Bridget.  I believe that she is a native of Ireland.  Thank you for looking, James and Karen from Canada

[avm228]

I can't help on Abney Park, but are they the Charles and Bridget CROWDER who baptised a daughter Jane at St Leonard, Shoreditch on 6 October 1850? (Charles a bricklayer, address Plough Court).

Have you found them in the 1851 census? (I see Bridget's death was registered in Holborn district).

Bridget's maiden name seems to have been BURNS, father James, and her brother Thomas with whom her children are enumerated after her death was born in the Shoreditch/Finsbury/City of London area abt 1813.

[dawnsh]

Hi James & Karen

If you haven't already, have a look here

http://www.hackney.gov.uk/cp-abneypark.htm

Please make contact with the cemetery and establish that there were actually headstones erected.

You also need to ask if that section is still accessible, much of Abney Park is now a nature reserve.

Dawn

[alunno-a]

"Nature Reserve" !!!
Abney Park, in Stoke Newington, is a loverley place, but, as most London burial grounds is now a nature reserve- or, as the residents will confirm a pathetic excuse on behalf of the local authority to not maintain the burial ground as it should be maintained, and as our ancestors PAID for it to be maintained. You have to have been fairly famous, infamous or plain rich and lucky to have had your memorial kept legible in London!!
and don't get me started on Tower Hamlets "nature reserve"-

[Valda]

Hi


In fairness there are over 150 civic cemeteries in Greater London. Only a minority of the very oldest have become nature reserves or part nature reserves (or still in private hands and badly maintained) and then largely due to the independent companies of the past who owned them, struggling on financially until they finally went bust and strapped for cash local authorities ended up taking them over when maintenance had already become a very major issue over many previous years.

e.g. Tower Hamlets Cemetery opened in 1841

'The City of London and Tower Hamlets Cemetery Company was made up of eleven wealthy directors whose occupations reflect the industries of the day: corn merchant, merchant ship broker and ship owner, timber merchant, and Lord Mayor of the City of London....The cemetery itself did not remain in a tidy and elegant state for long. Only 55 years after it was opened it was reported to be in a neglected state. During the Second World War the cemetery was bombed five times; shrapnel damage can be seen on the graves'.

The Greater London Council bought the cemetery in 1966. The London Borough of Tower Hamlets have owned the cemetery since 1986.

Similar story at Abney Park Cemetery opened in 1840

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abney_Park_Cemetery


Regards

Valda

[alunno-a]

Point taken Valda, but, Hackney council tax is not exactly cheap, - I believe TH is better- but they do have a duty to look after these places, and money spent on cutting back the brambles and keeping the stones upright strikes me as better spent than on a few "nature walk" boards, and providing a nesting place for a few mangey urban rats....apart from which if these places wernt so badly maintained they woudnt attract so much vandalism and "inappropriate use" in the first place.

rant over, blimey I sound a right old bat.

[julkes]

I live in Canada.  Hoping someone is able to trek out to this cemetery to look at 2 headstones.  I have a Charles and Bridget Crowder buried there.  They are husband and wife  He dies 1855 she dies 1858.  Both burials are in section E04.  Bridget's is burial number 022017.  Hoping there is a transcription on Bridget's tombstone.  Hoping to find more information on Bridget.  I believe that she is a native of Ireland.  Thank you for looking, James and Karen from Canada

have you got your photos yet?