Burnside Monument, Brompton Cemetery

Brompton Cemetery, Old Brompton Road, London, SW10

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Funerary monument to Burnside family, c.1943. Read the official list entry to find out more.

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1403346
Date first listed:: 21-Dec-2011
List Entry Name:: Burnside Monument, Brompton Cemetery
Statutory Address:: Brompton Cemetery, Old Brompton Road, London, SW10

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1403346
Date first listed:: 21-Dec-2011
List Entry Name:: Burnside Monument, Brompton Cemetery
Statutory Address 1:: Brompton Cemetery, Old Brompton Road, London, SW10

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.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

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.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: Brompton Cemetery, Old Brompton Road, London, SW10

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Greater London Authority
District:: Kensington and Chelsea (London Borough)
Parish:: Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:: TQ2554978027

Summary

Funerary monument to Burnside family, c.1943.

Reasons for Designation

* Design interest: a large and prominent memorial in a striking neo-Byzantine style; * Historic interest: commemorates a victim of the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915; * Group value: it is located within the Grade I-registered Brompton Cemetery and has group value with other listed tombs and structures nearby.

History

Allan and Iris Burnside were the grandchildren of the founder of Eaton's, once Canada's largest chain of department stores until financial difficulties in the 1970s led to their eventual takeover by Sears Canada in 1997, and closure in 2002. Iris Burnside died aboard the Lusitania when the ship was torpedoed by a German U-boat on 7 May 1915. Her mother, Josephine, was also aboard but survived. Allan died in Paris in 1937. The memorial is believed to have been erected on Josephine's death in 1943.

Brompton Cemetery was one of the 'magnificent seven' privately-run burial grounds established in the 1830s and 1840s to relieve pressure on London's overcrowded churchyards. It was laid out in 1839-1844 to designs by the architect Benjamin B Baud, who devised a classical landscape of axial drives and vistas with rond-points at the intersections marked by mausolea or ornamental planting, the latter devised by Isaac Finnemore with advice from J C Loudon. The main Ceremonial Way culminates in a dramatic architectural ensemble recalling Bernini's piazza in front of St Peter's in Rome, with flanking colonnades curving outwards to form a Great Circle, closed at its southern end in a domed Anglican chapel (the planned Catholic and Nonconformist chapels were omitted for financial reasons). The cemetery, never a commercial success, was compulsorily purchased by the General Board of Health in the early 1850s, and has remained in state ownership ever since.

Details

MATERIALS: Grey granite.

A large memorial (approximately 1.2m wide by 1.5m high) set on a low plinth and a base with contiguous seats. The end blocks of the seats form the stops of the kerb of a ledger stone pavement to the front of the headstone; two of the slabs are inscribed 'ALLAN' and IRIS'. The headstone is carved in relief with a neo-Byzantine angel figure, its hands resting on a Latin cross. The plinth has deeply incised block capitals reading 'BURNSIDE' with the inscription on the base below commemorating Allan Eaton Meldrum Burnside (1898-1937) and his sister Margaret Allan Iris Burnside (1894-1915), children of Thomas David Meldrum Burnside (1835-1900) and Josephine Smith Eaton Burnside (1866-1943) and grandchildren of Timothy Eaton (1834-1907) and Margaret Eaton (née Beattie - 1841-1933) of Toronto, Canada.

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, N, Cherry, B, The Buildings of England: London 3 North West, (1991), pp.470-471
Sheppard, FHW, Survey of London: Volume 41: Brompton, (1983), pp.246-252
Stevens Curl, J, The Victorian Celebration of Death, (1972), pp.112-129
Websites
The Lusitania Resource, accessed from http://rmslusitania.info/
Toronto Museum Project - Portrait of Iris Burnside, accessed from http://www.torontomuseumproject.ca/Stories/Details.aspx?ID=77

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.