Thanks to a £190,000+ grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, restoration is beginning at a Victorian Jewish cemetery in London that was the the first reform cemetery in Britain.
The West London Reform Cemetery, also known as the Balls Pond Road Jewish cemetery, occupies a small, more or less triangular plot enclosed by a high brick wall in London’s Islington district. It was established in 1843 and was in use until 1951. Around 1,000 people are buried there.
The Islington District Council and the West London Synagogue (which owns the cemetery) have jointly received a £190,731 grant from the NLHF “towards restoring and maintaining the site in Mildmay ward as well as developing it as a cultural and educational resource,” the Islington council said on its web site.
Called “Jewish Reform Pioneers – Uncovering BPR Cemetery’s Hidden Stories,’ the project “will make a huge difference to the site’s long-term future,” the web site for the project said.
The grant allows for surveys to inform a site management plan to help guide future work across restoration, maintenance, public engagement and biodiversity. It will also shine a light on the great thinkers, writers, philanthropists and scientists buried at BPR Cemetery and allow the stories of their contributions to be told once more.
Islington Council said planned work includes:
- Specialist restoration of memorials to preserve historic significance
- Enhanced site access with improved entrances
- Biodiversity surveys to understand and enhance the natural environment
- Community engagement opportunities including school programmes
As we posted at the time, the cemetery was listed as a Grade II historic monument in 2020.
In its detailed description of the listing, Historic England notes that it was London’s first Victorian Jewish burial ground, and that
it is first cemetery of the Jewish Reform Movement in Britain and the last resting place of those who inspired and shaped the movement including its founders, wealthy patrons and religious leaders; it is widely regarded as the most significant Jewish Reform Cemetery in England; the cemetery reflects a period of considerable and significant social change for Jews in England. […]
its memorials and inscriptions encapsulate the history of the Anglo-Jewish community in the later C19 and give physical expression to its growing size and influence, as well as its origins, and social mix; its fashionable memorial styles and use of inscriptions in English and other European languages, combined with the mixture of Ashkenazi and Sephardi grave markers, show the success of the movement in transcending ethnic origins and creating a community of British Jews; the relatively small plot of land with its boundary walls, tightly-grouped monuments and layout gives a clear impression of this later-C19 graveyard as it was originally conceived and has interest in its entirety.
See our 2020 post about the cemetery
See a photo documentation of all headstones in the cemetery via cemeteryscribes