Collection: Professor James Stevens Curl Collection

Description

This collection of photographs reflects Professor Curl's interest in the grand cemeteries and funerary architecture of the nineteenth century, particularly in London, and the work of the nineteenth century architect Henry Roberts, many of the images being used in his books.

Although national in coverage, over half the collection is of Greater London, and focuses on cemeteries; other counties, with the exception of Yorkshire - because of York Cemetery - receive only limited coverage.

The London cemeteries include: Abney Park Cemetery; Brompton Cemetery; Bunhill Fields Burial Ground; City of London Cemetery; Highgate Cemetery; Kensal Green Cemetery; Norwood or South Metropolitan Cemetery; Nunhead Cemetery; Paddington Cemetery, Willesden Lane; and Tower Hamlets Cemetery.

Much of the non-cemetery material relates to buildings designed by the Victorian architect Henry Roberts, showing model houses for families, including examples in Hertford and Streatham Street, Holborn.

Over 62% of the images were annotated with the year in which they were taken - most in the 1960s and 1970s. A small group of original prints (without negatives) were undated and given a general date range of between 1960 and 1992.

Accompanying the photographs is a detailed report by Professor Curl on Brompton Cemetery, and various notes on and listings he kept of the photographs

Archival History

James Stevens Curl is Emeritus Professor of Architectural History and Senior Research fellow at the School of Architecture at De Montfort University, Leicester. The collection was purchased from Curl in two parts in 1993 and 1995. It was catalogued between January and March 2000

Content

Rights

© Historic England Archive

© J S CURL