A walking tour of the most fashionable Victorian burial ground-Kensal Green Cemetery.

Kensal Green was the first of the seven great metropolitan cemeteries, laid out around in the 1800s by private companies. Consecrated in 1833, it was a response to reformist agitation over the state of London’s churchyards and privately-run burial grounds. It became Britain’s most fashionable Victorian burial ground after a royal interment in 1843 and it is the only public cemetery with royal residents (there are three).  Architect John Griffith’s wonderful Anglican Chapel is Grade I-listed and his Dissenters’ Chapel Grade II* while there are some truly spectacular monuments among the 160 listed structures.  Some 1,000 residents feature in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, including the Brunels, Charles Babbage, Trollope, Wilkie Collins and Thackeray as well as Victorian architects, artists, entertainers and others. It is still run by the company that founded it 190 years ago.  Led by expert guides from the Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery.