Cemetery Archives: Hortus Cemetery

In the side streets around Southall, there are two small cemeteries. They're both very typical of west London suburban cemeteries: well-maintained now by the London Borough of Ealing, but with signs of the neglect in their past. The older, Havelock Cemetery on Havelock Road, opened in 1885 and is now closed to new burials. Havelock's most interesting monument is the small pipe organ for William Harry Martin, who died in 1933.

Round the corner, Hortus Cemetery was opened in 1944. It's a large, rectangular piece of ground; there's little planting apart from the hedged rose garden at the front. Nonetheless, it's been popular and now has almost run out of space, particularly in the Muslim section in the north-west corner.

Visiting: Both cemeteries are walking distance from Southall train station. Both are quiet: Havelock was empty on Saturday lunchtime, apart from two lads trying to teach their dog to jump over the wall. Hortus had more visitors, but no one seemed to object to my brief photography exercise.