Brady Street Cemetery
The Brady Street Cemetery is a disused Jewish cemetery on Brady Street in Bethnal Green in the East End of London, E1. The cemetery opened in 1761 as the burial ground for the New Synagogue and was subsequently used by the Great Synagogue. It closed in 1857. Several notable people are buried there.
Architecture
The cemetery is 4 acres (1.6 ha) in size and is surrounded by a wall topped with broken glass.[1][2] The London: East edition of the Pevsner Architectural Guides describes the cemetery as "crowded with mainly later Victorian monuments" and highlights Miriam Levy's monument for its "considerable lavishness".[3]
History
The land the cemetery occupies was originally a brickfield on Ducking Pond Lane and was subsequently known as North Street. In 1761 it was leased to the New Synagogue for an annual rent of 12 guineas.[4] The cemetery was extended in 1795.[5]
The Brady Street Cemetery rapidly filled, and a solution was found with the addition of a four-foot layer of soil in the centre of the cemetery to allow additional burials. The raised area became known as the 'Strangers Mound' as many of the new burials were not affiliated to any particular congregation.[2] The headstones of the burials in the Strangers Mound and the ones below are set back to back.[4] The Great Synagogue subsequently buried people in the New Synagogue's Jewish cemetery at West Ham after forming a Conjoint Burial Board with the New Synagogue.[6]
In the 1980s the local council intended to redevelop the cemetery with the use of a compulsory purchase order as it had not been used for many years. If a cemetery has not had any internments for 100 years it may be redeveloped, but with the burial of Victor Rothschild, 3rd Baron Rothschild in the cemetery in 1990, the future of the Brady Street Cemetery was secured from building development until at least 2090.[7]
The cemetery is owned by the United Synagogue and open only by appointment.[1]
Notable burials
- Centenarian Nathan Moses who died aged 107 in 1799
- Financiers Benjamin and Abraham Goldsmid who both committed suicide; in 1808 and 1810 respectively
- Chief Rabbi of Great Britain Solomon Hirschell (died 1842)
- Hebrew scholar and professor Hyman Hurwitz (died 1844)
- Banker Nathan Meyer Rothschild (died 1836) and his wife Hannah Rothschild (died 1850)
- Charity worker Miriam Levy (died 1856)
- Business executive and intelligence operative Victor Rothschild, 3rd Baron Rothschild (died 1990)
References
- 1 2 "Brady Street Cemetery". United Synagogues. Retrieved 29 June 2017.
- 1 2 Robert Bard; Adrian Miles (15 February 2017). London's Hidden Burial Grounds. Amberley Publishing. p. 109. ISBN 978-1-4456-6112-4.
- ↑ Bridget Cherry; Charles O'Brien; Nikolaus Pevsner (2005). London: East. Yale University Press. p. 559. ISBN 978-0-300-10701-2.
- 1 2 Hugh Meller; Brian Parsons (1 July 2011). London Cemeteries: An Illustrated Guide & Gazetteer. History Press. ISBN 978-0-7524-9690-0.
- ↑ Christopher Hibbert; Ben Weinreb (2008). The London Encyclopaedia. Macmillan. p. 139. ISBN 978-1-4050-4924-5.
- ↑ Geoffrey Alderman (1998). Modern British Jewry. Clarendon Press. p. 86. ISBN 978-0-19-820759-7.
- ↑ "Jewish East End of London - Brady Street Cemetery". Jewish East End. Retrieved 29 June 2017.
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Coordinates: 51°31′19″N 0°03′39″W / 51.5219°N 0.0608°W