Monument to Ann Gardner and family, Kensal Green Cemetery

Monument to Ann Gardner and family, Kensal Green Cemetery, Harrow Road, London, W10 4RA

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Overview

Pink granite and Portland stone monument in the form of an enriched shaft flanked by seated figures, all set behind a ledger stone, 1846. Read the official list entry to find out more.

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1403616
Date first listed:: 03-Apr-2012
List Entry Name:: Monument to Ann Gardner and family, Kensal Green Cemetery
Statutory Address:: Monument to Ann Gardner and family, Kensal Green Cemetery, Harrow Road, London, W10 4RA

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1403616
Date first listed:: 03-Apr-2012
List Entry Name:: Monument to Ann Gardner and family, Kensal Green Cemetery
Statutory Address 1:: Monument to Ann Gardner and family, Kensal Green Cemetery, Harrow Road, London, W10 4RA

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:: Monument to Ann Gardner and family, Kensal Green Cemetery, Harrow Road, London, W10 4RA

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:: TQ2323782593

Summary

Pink granite and Portland stone monument in the form of an enriched shaft flanked by seated figures, all set behind a ledger stone, 1846.

Reasons for Designation

The tomb of Ann Gardner is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * Artistic interest: high-quality figure sculpture in the manner of Raffaele Monti, with unusual and touching iconography associated with blindness; * Historic interest: the monument commemorates various members of the family of Henry Gardner, brewer, who left half of his estate of £600,000 in trust for the benefit of blind people in England and Wales; * Group value: with other listed monuments within the Grade I registered Kensal Green Cemetery.

History

Ann Gardner (d.1846) was the wife of Henry Gardner (d.1879), brewer, of St John Street. Gardner left an estate of £600,000, half of which was left in trust for the benefit of blind people in England and Wales. The sculpted figures are in the manner later made popular in the work of Raffaelle Monti (1818-1881).

The Cemetery of All Souls at Kensal Green was the earliest of the large privately-run cemeteries established on the fringes of London to relieve pressure on overcrowded urban churchyards. Its founder George Frederick Carden intended it as an English counterpart to the great Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris, which he had visited in 1821. In 1830, with the financial backing of the banker Sir John Dean Paul, Carden established the General Cemetery Company, and two years later an Act of Parliament was obtained to develop a 55-acre site at Kensal Green, then among open fields to the west of the metropolis. An architectural competition was held, but the winning entry – a Gothic scheme by HE Kendall – fell foul of Sir John's classicising tastes, and the surveyor John Griffith of Finsbury was eventually employed both to lay out the grounds and to design the Greek Revival chapels, entrance arch and catacombs, built between 1834 and 1837. A sequence of royal burials, beginning in 1843 with that of Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex, ensured the cemetery’s popularity. It is still administered by the General Cemetery Company, assisted since 1989 by the Friends of Kensal Green.

Details

A complex and unusual composition centred on a tall, slightly tapering shaft or pedestal of pink Peterhead granite with a stepped granite and limestone base enriched with a foliate swag. This is surmounted by a draped urn set on a tall plinth, the latter having anthemion acroteria with downward-gazing putto's heads beneath. On either side are seated angelic figures in Portland stone, both winged and dressed in flowing garments. The left-hand figure is veiled and carries an extinguished torch and a scroll which it appears to be reading by touch; the right-hand figure reaches upwards, apparently beckoning. Both figures and shaft are set on a square base enriched with wreaths. In front is a curved granite ledger, and the whole monument is set on a shallow, rectangular sandstone base. The leaded inscriptions on the shaft and ledger commemorate Ann Gardner (d.1846) and various members of her family.

Sources

Books and journals
Curl, Stevens J, Kensal Green Cemetery: The Origins and Development of the General Cemetery of All Souls, Kensal Green, London, 1824-2001, (2001)
Pevsner, N, Cherry, B, The Buildings of England: London 3 North West, (1991)
Other
The Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery, Paths of Glory or 'A Select Alphabetical and Biographical List, illustrated with Line Drawings of their Monuments, of Persons of Note Commemorated at The Cemetery of All Souls at Kensal Green', 1997,

Legal

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