The amputee army of angels; Putney Vale Cemetery, Stag Lane, SW15

I was rather shocked to see that I had taken these photos on 17 September 2014, almost 9 years ago. Where does the time go? I remember one boring afternoon as a child, when the hours were crawling tediously by, asking my grandmother why time went so slowly? It only goes slowly when you are young, she told me, the older you get the faster time goes. I didn’t understand what she meant then, but I do now. No doubt you have heard the expression life is a rollercoaster? That is because you spend the first half of it slowly ascending that incline, barely looking at the view, impatient to be at the top and start the fun of the descent. And when you reach the top, the descent is over in seconds, gone by so quickly that you can’t tell if the feeling in the pit of your stomach is anxiety or excitement. And then you are dead! So much for the fun of the fair. Anyway, no one is interested in my existential angst are they? Putney Vale cemetery is why we are here…

On the north-west edge of Wimbledon Common, on the other side of the busy A3 from Richmond Park, Putney Vale isn’t easy to get to by public transport, with no stations nearby (the closest, Southfields, is a 40-minute walk away) the only way to get there is by a meandering bus journey from Putney, Wimbledon or Kingston. In this affluent corner of South West London anyone who can afford to be buried at Putney Vale won’t be using public transport. A standard grave (40-year lease) plus burial costs at least £8711, though there are discounts if you are a resident of the London Borough of Wandsworth. The cemetery also has a crematorium for which the fees are much more affordable, £690 including a 45-minute service in the chapel, though if you don’t mind being incinerated first thing in the morning, a pre 10am slot with a 20-minute service is a bargain at £342. This cemetery has cachet; “the hard marmoreal glitter of Putney Vale, built on fields that had been farmland since medieval times,” say Meller and Parsons in London Cemeteries, “was, and probably still is, one of the most popular cemeteries south of the river, having superseded the once fashionable West Norwood and Nunhead.”

The cemetery opened in 1891 and proved such an immediate success, that it was extended in 1909 and then again in 1912, and now covers 45 acres. At Putney Vale we see a late flowering of Victorian monumental masonry dating from just before the turn of the century through to the 1920’s and beyond. There are plenty of famous names buried here, archaeologist Howard Carter, who discovered the tomb of Tutankhamen and died in 1939 (and whose grave, to my everlasting embarrassment, I have never been able to locate), Russian prime minster Alexander Kerensky who lost his position in the Bolshevik Revolution and died in exile in London in 1970, and Jacob Epstein the New York sculptor who created the Art Deco flying angel on Oscar Wilde’s tomb in Paris but who is himself buried under a rather dull rock (he died in 1959). I have already covered the graves of J. Bruce Ismay, the chairman of the White Star Line who was rescued from the Titanic, Colonel Alexander Gordon, who has an Egyptian style mausoleum (which featured on a Judas Priest albim cover), Percival Lea-Wilson, who was murdered by the IRA (and has only himself to blame) and Antonio de Vasconcellos who held his 26th birthday party on the pleasure steamer the Marchioness the night that she was sunk by the Bowbelle.    

Its relatively remote location and, for many years, the easy accessibility on public footpaths from Wimbledon Common led to an unusual amount of vandalism in the cemetery. The angels look like they have all been invalided out of the army of heaven after fighting the last battle of the Book of Revelation. There is barely a single one who has not suffered at least a single amputation, many are double amputees forlornly holding up the stumps from missing arms or hands. A figure of Christ with open arms has also been left completely armless. The best tombs are on the perimeter road that runs from the chapel and crematorium, round the southern boundary and ends at the Ismay memorial. Meller and Parsons say that the monuments range from the ‘sublime’ (the Gordon Mausoleum) “to the ridiculous, exemplified by the flower strewing angels in the blue and orange tiled loggia on Caroline Lyons’ tomb (1924)…. Granite, marble, limestone and bronze jostle in frenzied commemoration of wealthy residents from Wimbledon, Putney and Streatham.”   

When the cemetery opened it stood close to the rifle range once used by the National Rifle Association for its annual meetings. These stopped in 1889 but the ranges continued to be used by army volunteers with fatal consequences for gravedigger John Ingram who was hit in the back by a stray bullet whilst digging a grave on Tuesday 22nd May 1894. This is the story as told by the Surrey Independent and Wimbledon Mercury in that week’s Saturday edition;

On Tuesday afternoon an accident occurred at Putney New Cemetery, Kingston Vale. It appears that a gravedigger named John Ingram. residing at the Plain, Wandsworth, was digging a grave in the cemetery, when he was struck in the back by a bullet, which penetrated his shoulder blade and embedded itself in his right lung. His cries for help soon brought aid, and he was removed to the Putney Police Station, where he was seen by Drs. M'Geoagh and Orr. Upon their advice he was removed to the West London Hospital. The medical men hold out no hope of Ingram's recovery. The cemetery is situated at the rear of the Wimbledon Common rifle ranges. and the injured man was working with his back to them. At the time of the accident a squad of men from the Civil Service Volunteer Corps were practising. and it is supposed that it was a stray bullet from one if their rifles that struck Ingram. Some time ago, upon the representations to the ranger by the inhabitants around the Common, many of the ranges were closed, and it is understood that the Duke of Cambridge only assented to the present use of range in question for the sake of the metropolitan volunteers. The accident to Ingram terminated fatally, the unfortunate man succumbing to his injuries in the hospital on Wednesday morning. The deceased man, who was only thirty-three years of age, and resided at 78 Point Pleasant, Wandsworth, was in the employ of Mr. Williams, of High -street. Putney, the contractor to the Putney Burial Board. It appears at the time of the accident three corps were shooting at the ranges, namely the 12th Middlesex, the 25th Middlesex and the 4th Surrey, but from inquiry which has been instituted it cannot be stated by which of the three corps the shot would have been fired.

Questions were immediately raised in Parliament by John Cumming Macdona the MP for Rotherhithe and responded to by the Home Secretary, Herbert Asquith (a textbook politicians answer - “I understand that a military inquiry, ordered by the General Officer commanding the Home District, has been made, and I have no doubt that the result of the inquiry will receive the careful consideration of the Military Authorities with a view to the prevention of further accidents.”) By July the Surrey Comet was reporting that the Putney Burial Board was seeking an injunction in the High Court to stop the commander of the various volunteer regiments from allowing his amateur soldiers practising their shooting on the common. Whether the injunction was granted or whether the volunteer regiments gave up of their own accord, there was no further shooting practice next to the cemetery.