Magnificent Seven cemeteries facts for kids
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The "Magnificent Seven" is an informal term applied to seven large private cemeteries in London. They were established in the 19th century to alleviate overcrowding in existing parish burial grounds.
Background
For hundreds of years, almost all London's dead were buried in small parish churchyards, which quickly became dangerously overcrowded. Architects such as Sir Christopher Wren and Sir John Vanbrugh both deplored this practice and wished to see suburban cemeteries established, but it was not until British visitors to Paris including George Frederick Carden inspired by its Père Lachaise cemetery and devoted sufficient time and money to canvass for reform that an equivalent was developed in London: first at Kensal Green.
In the first 50 years of the 19th century the population of London more than doubled from 1 million to 2.3 million. Overcrowded graveyards also led to decaying matter getting into the water supply and causing epidemics. There were incidents of graves being dug on unmarked plots that already contained bodies, and of bodies being defiled by sewer rats infiltrating the churchyards' drains from the relatively central Tyburn, Fleet, Effra and Westbourne which were used as foul sewers by this date and later wholly discharged into London's outfall sewers.
Images for kids
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Brompton cemetery one of the magnificent seven.
See also
In Spanish: Siete Magníficos para niños
