Monument to Stephen Geary
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
- Heritage Category:
- Listed Building
- Grade:
- II
- List Entry Number:
- 1403435
- Date first listed:
- 22-Dec-2011
- List Entry Name:
- Monument to Stephen Geary
- Statutory Address:
- Highgate Cemetery, Swain's Lane, Camden, Greater London, N6 6PJ
Location
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Official list entry
- Heritage Category:
- Listed Building
- Grade:
- II
- List Entry Number:
- 1403435
- Date first listed:
- 22-Dec-2011
- List Entry Name:
- Monument to Stephen Geary
- Location Description:
- located to east of main path between Comforts Corner and the Egyptian Avenue
- Statutory Address 1:
- Highgate Cemetery, Swain's 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 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:
- TQ2840387064
Summary
Sandstone headstone, c.1854
Reasons for Designation
The monument to Stephen Geary is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Historic Interest: commemorates the founder and initial designer of Highgate Cemetery;
* Setting: it is located within the Grade I registered Highgate Cemetery and has group value with other listed tombs and structures nearby.
History
Stephen Geary (1797–1854) was an architect, engineer and entrepreneur, and the founding member of the triumvirate responsible for the design of Highgate Cemetery. In 1836 he established the London Cemetery Company, the commercial force behind both Highgate and Nunhead Cemeteries. Geary conducted the initial surveys for Highgate and probably designed the Circle of Lebanon, although in 1839 he was succeeded as the Company's architect by James Bunstone Bunning. His best-known work apart from Highgate was the so-called King's Cross, a sixty-foot monument to King George IV at the top of the Gray's Inn Road in London, from which the railway station later took its name. He is credited with the design of London's first gin palace, and also took out a number of patents for inventions ranging from artificial fuel to street paving.
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. A seventeen-acre site on Highgate Hill was acquired by the London Cemetery Company and 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 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 low headstone with a scalloped and rounded top. The inscription reads: ‘Sacred to the memory of Stephen Geary Esq. architect and founder of this cemetery who departed this life August 28th 1854 in the 57th year of his age’. A further inscription below commemorates his wife Sarah (d.1867).
Sources
Books and journals
Colvin, H, A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600-1840, (1995), p.396
Stevens Curl, J, Death and Architecture, (2002), pp.224-7
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 06-Jun-2026 at 09:07:04.
Download a full scale map (PDF)End of official list entry
All text content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 , except where otherwise stated. Any supplied maps are © Crown Copyright [and database rights] 2026 OS AC0000815036 and may not be reproduced without permission.