2012

SP0588 : Key Hill Cemetery, Hockley: view west into the lower area

taken 11 years ago, near to Birmingham, England

Key Hill Cemetery, Hockley: view west into the lower area
Key Hill Cemetery, Hockley: view west into the lower area
The ground is thickly carpeted with the leathery leaves of London Plane trees. There is a great variety of memorials in the cemetery.
Key Hill Cemetery, Birmingham

Key Hill Cemetery is an example of the many non-parochial public cemeteries operated by private companies in the early nineteenth century, before the Public Health Act of 1848 empowered elected local boards to provide and manage public burial grounds. In the case of Key Hill the enterprise was facilitated by sand quarrying. The memorials are of particular local interest.

Towns and cities were growing fast during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Sanitary conditions were poor, with diseases such as cholera and typhoid affecting all classes of society. By the early nineteenth century the mediaeval parish churchyards of Birmingham, as elsewhere, were becoming seriously overcrowded and insanitary. At St Philip’s Church (now St Philip’s Cathedral) the number of interments had raised the level of the malodorous churchyard to above street level. At this time resentment was increasing among dissenters in the city, many of whom were leading figures in its commercial and industrial life, at having to pay fees to Anglican clergy for burial in parochial burial grounds. Elsewhere in England similar conditions led groups of interested or commercially astute men to form joint stock companies to run commercial cemeteries. The first of them, St James’, Liverpool, was opened in 1829 in a dramatic disused quarry featuring a classical chapel and landscaping. It was soon making a good financial return for its investors, and must have proved an attractive model to imitators.

Key Hill was the first cemetery to be opened in Birmingham. It was established by the General Cemetery Company, formed in 1832 and backed by a group of nonconformists. The site had been partly quarried for a valuable high-quality sand that was used in the making of moulds for metal foundries and glassworks. Quarrying had left a steep cliff-face below residential Key Hill Drive. To the southeast the proprietors continued to quarry sand, generating income and further level space for expansion of the burial ground. The company envisaged that the cemetery would be open to all creeds and denominations although in practice nonconformists mainly used it. It served the public for 146 years with the quarry providing a regular income for the cemetery until the 1930s. It was taken over by the City in 1952 and is Grade II Listed in the Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest. It lies within the Jewellery Quarter Conservation Area. In 1848 the Anglican community established its own cemetery to the south by Warstone Lane, in SP0587.

The Birmingham General Cemetery, its original name, opened in 1836. The Icknield Street entrance was dominated by a classical chapel designed by the Birmingham architect and board member Charles Edge. The classical style was favoured by nonconformists because the Gothic style had been adopted by Anglican church-builders. The chapel was demolished in 1966. Edge also designed the monumental gate piers on Key Hill and Icknield Street with their reliefs of symbolically upturned torches and serpents biting their tails. These, together with the original cast-iron gates made at the Britannia Foundry, Derby and the contemporary railings on Icknield Street are all listed and have been restored. A range of catacombs was constructed by Edge in the cliff-face on the east side of the cemetery, providing a then fashionable (and expensive) form of burial. The catacombs were used by the Council as temporary dwellings for people whose homes were bombed in World War II. They were still publicly accessible until the 1970s.

The cemetery was landscaped and planted by the Handsworth nurseryman John Pope. The grounds were laid out in two contrasting sections: the lower area around the chapel had a grid of walks planted with specimen trees; to the north a slightly higher area was planted in a more ornamental style with groups of trees and shrubs providing a setting for the monuments. The trees are predominantly London Plane. Terrace walks were constructed above the catacombs and on the cliff-face, leading to a small observatory which no longer survives. The only alteration has been to make way for the West Midlands Metro (tram) in 1995. Where land was taken, a memorial has been erected at the back of the cemetery.

Key Hill Cemetery has a particularly interesting collection of funerary monuments commemorating many leading figures in Victorian Birmingham: Joseph Chamberlain and many members of his family; the unrelated Birmingham architect John Henry Chamberlain who has a particularly attractive arts and crafts-influenced headstone; the architect Charles Edge; Alfred Bird, the chemist who invented Bird’s Custard because of his wife’s intolerance to eggs; William Middlemore, one of Birmingham’s greatest philanthropists; George Dawson, preacher and educationalist, who held a successful ministry close to Key Hill for 32 years; John Henderson, industrialist and Crystal Palace pioneer, and the Reverend Edward H. Manning, the chaplain and secretary for over 50 years to Birmingham General Cemetery. He officiated at more than 15,000 burials while living with his family in the basement of the chapel. There are also monuments to many of the manufacturers who lived and had their businesses in the surrounding streets: Joseph Gillott, pen-maker to Queen Victoria returned to be buried in the Jewellery Quarter where he had originally founded his flourishing business; and nearby is buried Mr Mole, the piano-dealer from Great Hampton Street, and the local brewer George Cox. As Joseph Chamberlain remarked, Key Hill Cemetery is “the most interesting place in the world to a Birmingham man”.

Mash-up by Robin Stott, December 2013

Sources
Jonathan Lovie. Key Hill Cemetery and Warstone Lane Cemetery, Birmingham: an introduction to the sites. Warwickshire Gardens Trust, 2001. ISSN 1469-0276.

On-site interpretation board by Birmingham and Solihull Groundwork, undated. Further credits on the board.

James Stevens Curl. The Victorian Celebration of Death. Stroud: Sutton Publishing Limited, paperback edition 2004. ISBN 0-7509-3873-0

Wikipedia article: Jewellery Quarter. LinkExternal link

Website: A history of Birmingham Places and placenames…from A to Y, by William Dargue.
LinkExternal link


Creative Commons Licence [Some Rights Reserved]   © Copyright Robin Stott and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
Geographical Context: Lowlands Suburb, Urban fringe Burial ground, Crematorium Place: Birmingham Hockley Postcode Area: B18 Former: Quarry other tags: Historic Cemetery Click a tag, to view other nearby images.
This photo is linked from: Automatic Clusters: · Memorial [9] · Lower Area [7] · Trees [4] ·
1:50,000 Modern Day Landranger(TM) Map © Crown Copyright
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1:50,000 Modern Day Landranger(TM) Map © Crown Copyright
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Grid Square
SP0588, 138 images   (more nearby 🔍)
Photographer
Robin Stott   (more nearby)
Date Taken
Wednesday, 5 December, 2012   (more nearby)
Submitted
Friday, 6 December, 2013
Subject Location
OSGB36: geotagged! SP 0589 8811 [10m precision]
WGS84: 52:29.4523N 1:54.8810W
Camera Location
OSGB36: geotagged! SP 0591 8810
View Direction
West-northwest (about 292 degrees)
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Image classification(about): Geograph
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