Monument to James Selby

Highgate Cemetery, Swain's Lane, Camden, Greater London, N6 6PJ

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

Overview

Sandstone funerary monument, c.1888. Read the official list entry to find out more.

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1403432
Date first listed:: 22-Dec-2011
List Entry Name:: Monument to James Selby
Statutory Address:: Highgate Cemetery, Swain's Lane, Camden, Greater London, N6 6PJ

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1403432
Date first listed:: 22-Dec-2011
List Entry Name:: Monument to James Selby
Location Description:: Immediately above the Colonnade
Statutory Address 1:: Highgate Cemetery, Swain's Lane, Camden, Greater London, N6 6PJ

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:: Highgate Cemetery, Swain's 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:: TQ2851186969

Summary

Sandstone funerary monument, c.1888

Reasons for Designation

The monument to James Selby is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * Artistic Interest: bears good-quality relief sculpture which directly reflects the occupation of the person commemorated; * Historic Interest: commemorates a record-breaking driver from the last days of the coaching trade; * Setting: it is located within the Grade I registered Highgate Cemetery and has group value with other listed tombs and structures nearby.

History

James Selby (1842-1888) was a London coachman who achieved fame in July 1888 by breaking the 8-hour record for the return trip from London to Brighton. He made the trip in 7 hours 50 minutes, using seven teams of horses and winning a £1000 newspaper bet in the process. He died of acute bronchitis in December of the same year; the 'Old Times' coach suspended its services until after his funeral as a mark of respect.

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

The monument takes the form of a simple square-cut stone cross on three square steps set at the head of the grave plot, which is surrounded on the other three sides by posts and chains. The cross is unadorned but there are inscriptions on the upper two steps: ‘In memory of James William Selby, who died 14th Dec 1888 in his 46th year'; 'This monument was erected to the memory of James W Selby, the noted whip and proprietor of the Old Times coach of as a mark of esteem by his many coaching friends.’ A relief of a horsewhip and post-horn, illustrating Selby’s occupation, adorns the lowest step. The posts at the foot of the grave are each decorated by a single inverted horseshoe.

Sources

Books and journals
Stevens Curl, J, Death and Architecture, (2002), pp.224-7
Websites
Obituary of James Selby in the New York Times, 26 December 1888, accessed from http://query.nytimes.com

Legal

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