London Month of the Dead - Guided Tour of West Norwood Cemetery

LIFE, DEATH & THE AFTERLIFE A Guided Tour and Rare Visit to the Catacombs of West Norwood Cemetery On Sunday 25th October 2026 at 10:30 am & 1:30 pm Once revered as a sanctuary for the departed and the living alike, West Norwood emerged from the expanding edge of Victorian London in 1837. With its grand monuments, magnificent mausolea and elegant avenues, it quickly established itself as one of the celebrated Magnificent Seven cemeteries, where changing attitudes towards death, remembrance and the afterlife were expressed in stone. Join Robert for an exploration of this remarkable cemetery’s most cherished and surprising memorials before descending into its rarely opened catacombs. Hidden beneath the cemetery lie around 2,500 lead-lined coffins housed within a labyrinth of brick vaults and silent corridors, complete with the remains of a remarkable nineteenth-century hydraulic coffin lift once used to lower the dead from the chapel above. Together, the cemetery and its hidden underworld offer a fascinating insight into nearly two centuries of Victorian attitudes to life, death and what lies beyond. Tickets £15 including a 20% donation toward a host of restoration projects at West Norwood Cemetery Robert Stephenson Robert Stephenson is a qualified City of London Culture and Heritage guide and a trustee at Kensal Green and Brompton cemeteries. He teaches on London and death studies. Robert is also chairman of the National Federation of Cemetery Friends.

LIFE, DEATH & THE AFTERLIFE
A Guided Tour and Rare Visit to the Catacombs of West Norwood Cemetery
On Sunday 25th October 2026 at 10:30 am & 1:30 pm

Once revered as a sanctuary for the departed and the living alike, West Norwood emerged from the expanding edge of Victorian London in 1837. With its grand monuments, magnificent mausolea and elegant avenues, it quickly established itself as one of the celebrated Magnificent Seven cemeteries, where changing attitudes towards death, remembrance and the afterlife were expressed in stone.

Join Robert for an exploration of this remarkable cemetery’s most cherished and surprising memorials before descending into its rarely opened catacombs. Hidden beneath the cemetery lie around 2,500 lead-lined coffins housed within a labyrinth of brick vaults and silent corridors, complete with the remains of a remarkable nineteenth-century hydraulic coffin lift once used to lower the dead from the chapel above. Together, the cemetery and its hidden underworld offer a fascinating insight into nearly two centuries of Victorian attitudes to life, death and what lies beyond.

Tickets £15 including a 20% donation toward a host of restoration projects at West Norwood Cemetery

Robert Stephenson
Robert Stephenson is a qualified City of London Culture and Heritage guide and a trustee at Kensal Green and Brompton cemeteries. He teaches on London and death studies. Robert is also chairman of the National Federation of Cemetery Friends.