Monument to Peter Thomson, Kensal Green Cemetery

Monument to Peter Thomson, Kensal Green Cemetery, Harrow Road, London, W10 4RA

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

Overview

Portland stone headstone, 1851. Read the official list entry to find out more.

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1403625
Date first listed:: 03-Apr-2012
List Entry Name:: Monument to Peter Thomson, Kensal Green Cemetery
Statutory Address:: Monument to Peter Thomson, Kensal Green Cemetery, Harrow Road, London, W10 4RA

The Missing Pieces Project

Share your view of unique places.

Add your contribution

Location

Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.

There is a problem

Use of this mapping is subject to terms and conditions.

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.

What is the National Heritage List for England?

The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.

The list includes:

🏠 Buildings
🏰 Scheduled monuments
🌳 Parks and gardens
⚔️ Battlefields
⚓ Shipwrecks

Find out more about listing

Historic England Archive

Search over 1 million photographs and drawings from the 1850s to the present day using our images archive.

Find Photos

Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1403625
Date first listed:: 03-Apr-2012
List Entry Name:: Monument to Peter Thomson, Kensal Green Cemetery
Statutory Address 1:: Monument to Peter Thomson, 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 Peter Thomson, 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:: TQ2312482676

Summary

Portland stone headstone, 1851.

Reasons for Designation

The monument to Peter Thomson is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * Design interest: a large and very unusual monument featuring complex Masonic symbolism; * Historic interest: commemorates a prominent and influential freemason of the early C19; * Group value: with other listed monuments within the Grade I registered Kensal Green Cemetery.

History

Peter Thomson (d.1851) was a senior Freemason who played an important role in the union of England’s two rival Grand Lodges. The Premier (or ‘Modern’) Grand Lodge of England and its rival the Antient Grand Lodge had existed separately since the latter’s establishment in 1751. When the two were finally brought together in 1813 as the United Grand Lodge, their customs and rituals were found to be widely divergent, and a Lodge of Reconciliation was set up to formulate a definitive set of procedures. Thomson assisted in the work of this Lodge and was the founding Preceptor of its successor body, the Stability Lodge of Instruction, established in 1817 to teach and promulgate the reformed code. Thomson was greatly respected within the fraternity as one who had dedicated his life to the Masonic cause; following his death, subscriptions were obtained for an appropriate monument at a cost of 10 guineas.

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, which were 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

The monument takes the form of an exceptionally broad and thick headstone set on a coped plinth. The upper section is stepped and ornamented with leafy scrolls; the uppermost part bears the image of an open book with the Masonic square and compasses in front, crowned by a stack of Masonic implements. The western face of the stone displays a roundel containing the Dove of Peace in relief, below which is a lengthy inscription to Peter Thomson. The eastern face has a Star of David roundel and a wreath containing the letters PT interlinked.

The main inscription reads: ‘Sacred to the memory of / Mr Peter Thomson / who died on the 27th of Feby 1851 aged 72 years. / He was for a very long period an active member / of the ancient fraternity of freemasons. / And for 38 years / a member of the Grand Lodge of England / in which he served the office of Grand Deacon / by honesty of purpose, undeviating integrity and / kindness of disposition while living he secured / the esteem, the confidence and the good will / of all his brethren who in a testimony of respect / to departed worth have erected this monument.’

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.