Monument to Sampson Copestake
Highgate (West) Cemetery, Swains Lane, Camden, Greater London, N6 6PJ
Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places
Overview
- Heritage Category:
- Listed Building
- Grade:
- II
- List Entry Number:
- 1403274
- Date first listed:
- 22-Dec-2011
- List Entry Name:
- Monument to Sampson Copestake
- Statutory Address:
- Highgate (West) Cemetery, Swains Lane, Camden, Greater London, N6 6PJ
Location
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Discover moreOfficial list entry
- Heritage Category:
- Listed Building
- Grade:
- II
- List Entry Number:
- 1403274
- Date first listed:
- 22-Dec-2011
- List Entry Name:
- Monument to Sampson Copestake
- Location Description:
- To west of Outer Circle
- Statutory Address 1:
- Highgate (West) Cemetery, Swains Lane, Camden, Greater London, N6 6PJ
The scope of legal protection for listed buildings
This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.
Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.
For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.
The scope of legal protection for listed buildings
This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.
Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.
For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.
Location
- Statutory Address:
- Highgate (West) Cemetery, Swains Lane, Camden, Greater London, N6 6PJ
The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.
- County:
- Greater London Authority
- District:
- Camden (London Borough)
- Parish:
- Non Civil Parish
- National Grid Reference:
- TQ2833787113
Summary
Granite arca monument, c.1863
Reasons for Designation
The monument to Sampson Copestake and family is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Design interest: an exceptionally large and impressive monument, showing the High Victorian adaptation of Neoclassical funerary design, made possible by newly-developed industrial techniques of stonecutting;
*Setting: it occupies a prominent position within the Grade I registered Highgate Cemetery and has group value with other listed tombs and structures nearby.
History
Sampson Copestake (1800-74) was a Nottingham-born merchant and clothier. He was a founding partner in Copestake, Moore, Crampton and Co., a large drapery firm with offices in Cheapside and warehouses in Bow Churchyard.
Highgate Cemetery was the third of London's 'magnificent seven' burial grounds, a ring of suburban cemeteries established in the 1830s and 1840s to relieve pressure on overcrowded urban churchyards. It was the creation of the London Cemetery Company, a joint-stock company founded by the architect and engineer Stephen Geary and formally instituted by Act of Parliament in 1836. A seventeen-acre site on Highgate Hill was laid out as a picturesque garden cemetery with a network of serpentine drives, culminating in a monumental catacomb complex at the top of the hill. Geary himself supplied the initial plans, with assistance from the architect JB Bunning and from the landscape gardener David Ramsay. The cemetery, opened in 1839 and extended to the east of Swain's Lane in 1854, enjoyed great popularity and prestige during the second half of the C19 (famous occupants include George Eliot, Christina Rossetti and Karl Marx), but lack of money and maintenance led to a severe decline during the C20. Since 1975 it has been run on a charitable basis by the present Friends group.
Details
A very large monument of polished grey granite, prominently situated on the Upper Circle. Square in plan, the monument comprises an arca, or tapering chest, placed beneath a heavy moulded cover, supported at each corner by three Doric colonnettes. An inscription commemorates Sampson Copestake (d.1874), his wife Anne (d.1863), and their son Sampson (d.1917). The edge of the cover is enriched with incised Greek key ornament. The arca rests on a tall and richly moulded base, with a course of rock-faced rustication just above ground level.
Sources
Books and journals
Stevens Curl, J, Death and Architecture, (2002), pp.224-7
Mellors, R, Old Nottingham Suburbs, (1914)
Other
Cemetery Order Books, held by the Friends of Highgate Cemetery.
,
Legal
This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.
Map
This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale. This copy shows the entry on 14-Jun-2026 at 13:51:23.
Download a full scale map (PDF)End of official list entry
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