MONUMENT CONSERVATION
Private Memorials
Highgate Cemetery, Highgate West, The Ashes Area 2010-ongoing

The aim here was to create additional ash burial in an area previously given over to unmarked pauper graves.

Adjoining the area for future ash burials was a row of nine memorials which had suffered heavy subsidence over the years.

All of these memorials were earth graves: they were not vaulted.
The consequences of the ground subsidence were that most of the memorials had broken apart. Some elements had completely dislocated and uncontrolled tree growth had damaged many other features like curbs and Yorkstone rafts.

To create the new burial site, it was important to make safe the row of monuments, whilst simultaneously segregating them from the actual ashes area.

To achieve such segregation, we recommended reconstructing the existing memorials on fake brick vaults thus adhering to a traditional aesthetic, whilst at the same time creating a dividing structure  between the ‘new’ and the ‘old’.
 
Using salvaged Victorian bricks, the result is in keeping with the original architectural intention of the cemetery.