West Norwood Cemetery: path, roadway and drainage works

Works are now set to begin on the New Beginning programme of improvements at West Norwood Cemetery. Drainage upgrade, resurfacing of roadways and improvement to footpaths are expected to start the week commencing 1 June 2021 and be completed by week commencing 10 January 2022.

The works are shown on this plan. Due to their scale, and to maintain safe conditions for staff, contractors and visitors, there will be some areas which will be restricted for access over the construction period. However Lambeth Council will ensure that funeral services within the cemetery can continue in an efficient manner. There will be continued vehicle access to the crematorium.

The works will improve parts of the cemetery carriageways that are in particularly poor repair, improve footpaths to enable users’ access to the centre of the cemetery and some of the cemetery’s fine memorials. Drainage works will enable. paths which are frequently impassable to be made more accessible and minimise the extent of areas that regularly become awash with surface water. Reconstructed drainage is designed with more capacity and attenuation in accordance with Sustainable Drainage System (SuDS) principles.

The New Beginning programme is a partnership of Lambeth Council and the Friends of West Norwood Cemetery, and National Lottery funding (£4.6m) has been awarded jointly by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) and the Big Lottery Fund, with further funding of £2.1m of match-funding contributed by the Council and the Friends of West Norwood Cemetery. The ‘New Beginning’ vision for the project aims to achieve a balance between burials and bereavement, expanded community uses, nature and landscape and heritage, culture and history, thereby providing an enhanced and sustainable community asset.

It is great to actually see these works beginning. As a reminder, the project, which commenced in April 2019 and will last for five years, consists of a capital works programme and activities and interpretation plans:

Plans for two new pedestrian entrances: at Hubbard Road and Robson Road
A new visitor centre provided within the existing cemetery lodge building
The repair and conservation of 16 significant monuments and their removal from the ‘Heritage at Risk’ Register (there are 69 listed cemetery monuments in total)
Infrastructure works to carriageways, footpaths, drainage and the extensive boundary wall (the works now reported above).
The repair of St Stephens Chapel (Greek Cemetery) to bring it into wider public use as a small-scale events venue
Interpretation and wayfinding to provide more ways for visitors to learn and explore
An activities, volunteering and interpretation programme to encourage new visitors and greater participation.

You can read more about the history of West Norwood Cemetery in our January 2021 story here.

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