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This section of the website comprises a transcript of some 13,700 gravestones at Ladywell & Brockley Cemetery, with the names of nearly 37,000 individuals buried there. The cemetery covers 21 acres and is located in the western part of the ancient parish of Lewisham, close to Ladywell and Crofton Park stations. The main vehicle entrance is at the east end, accessed from Ladywell Road.
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| Plan of the layout of Ladywell & Brockley cemeteries | Ladywell, general view |
There were originally two cemeteries called Lewisham and Deptford, both established in 1858 on land in Lewisham belonging to the Earl of Dartmouth. This was in response to legislation of 1854 banning further burials in London's overcrowded churchyards. They were to receive burials from those two parishes. Originally separated by a strip of land, later extensions resulted in them abutting one another as shown on the map above, and now the old dividing wall is marked only by a grassy ridge. There is a large Roman Catholic section at the western end of Brockley Cemetery, and a later extension in the south which was used 1922-35 and is densely packed with gravestones. By 1914 Lewisham Cemetery had been renamed Ladywell, and Deptford later became known as Brockley. Since the creation of the London Borough of Lewisham in 1965 they have been administered as a single unit.
The data on this website is derived from a transcript made in the 1980s as a personal project by a Mr B. Clark. He kindly loaned his original manuscript to the Society for typing and indexing. It supposedly covers both cemeteries, Brockley and Ladywell. However, though he may have been regarded it as complete at the time, we've noted significant omissions. So it's probably best regarded as a "lucky dip" rather than a definitive listing of surviving headstones. Mr Clark appears to have compiled no plans, which makes any assessment of its completeness quite difficult to establish without extensive sampling. And even after locating an entry in this index, finding the actual stone may prove difficult. For more on this, see below.
Although some of the data has been available for several years, this is the first time that the entire database as originally recorded has been made available for searching. A few names from a War Memorial are in a different format and don't appear here.
| Click here to make a search. |
If you want to find a particular gravestone you're very unlikely to succeed by just turning up and searching, unless you have further information beforehand. The cemetery is huge and parts of it are overgrown or wooded. The best approach is probably to contact the Cemetery Office at Lewisham Crematorium, 1 Verdant Lane, London SE6 1TP. They hold the original burial registers for Ladywell and Brockley as well as for other cemeteries in the Borough. See the Lewisham Council website for further details. Searches currently cost £30.
Assuming the Cemetery Office staff can find the entry based on the information you provide, you may expect to receive a copy of the entry in the 'purchase grave register'. This will show the name and address of the original purchaser of the plot, the date of purchase and the names & ages of the people subsequently buried there. The entry will also include the plot reference, which should lead to its position within the cemetery. Depending on how detailed is the information you receive, it may or may not be necessary to visit the cemetery office to consult their large scale plans. Lewisham don't offer a service to find and photograph individual gravestones.
Besides the database on this website, there is another manuscript survey produced independently by Mr Ken White, arranged in two sections (Ladywell and Brockley). This records inscriptions mainly as surname+initials, but omits those of lesser architectural interest. But it does have a useful introduction including reproductions of old photos/postcards, and there are grave numbers and plans. There is a copy of this work at Lewisham Local Studies and Archives Centre.
The Friends of Brockley and Ladywell Cemeteries (FOBLC) is a recently formed group. They organise volunteer days to improve the cemetery for users, relatives and wildlife.
London Cemeteries - An Illustrated Guide and Gazetteer (1981) by Hugh Meller includes a section on Brockley Cemetery (p.71-73), with a short list of some notable people who were buried there.
Click here to view some more photographs of the cemetery.
A number of people have been involved in the processing of the data over a period of more than 20 years, including at least three Society Project Coordinators.
In 1987-88 Society member David Warren entered 4,000 of the 37,000 names into a database. Printouts of his work were produced by Society Projects Coordinator Elaine Williams and donated to the Society Library, the Society of Genealogists, Lewisham Local Studies Library and to the Cemetery Office.
In 1998-2000 typing of the entire manuscript was undertaken separately by Joyce and Charley Hoad, with checking co-ordinated by Society Projects Coordinator Walter Eves.
Further work on the database including sequential numbering of the gravestones was begun by Projects Coordinator Bob Woodward in 2003, and completed by Peter Searle and Stephen Archer in 2006-07. Preparation of the database for publication on the website was undertaken by Stephen Archer in June 2007 to January 2008.
If you want to comment on the transcript/index or provide further information, please email