Distance: 0.9 miles
Difficulty of the terrain: easy
Get the route via: Ordnance Survey Maps or download the gpx. from Dropbox
Walk from Coventry Railway Station the short distance to the Grade II*, park like, Coventry Road Cemetery designed by Joseph Paxton famed for later being the architect of the Crystal Palace.
The Story
Route Notes
Getting Back
Very Much Not a Churchyard
Situated on the southern edge of central Coventry London Road Cemetery is the West Midland’s answer to Highgate Cemetery in London.
Not because it has a significant number of notable people buried within it, rather it is the final resting place of generations of ordinary Coventry people, but rather because it is one of the best surviving examples in the UK of the kind of garden cemeteries which the Victorians really embraced.
Very far from the dark, cramped churchyards that predated the Victorian era, London Road Cemetery is set out like a park, with lawns and trees, breaking up the lines of gravestones. Just like Highgate Cemetery on the edge of central London.
It is also one of the earliest examples of the type having been commissioned by the Coventry Cemetery Committee in 1845. Joseph Paxton, formerly the Head Gardener at Chatsworth House in the Derbyshire Peak District, and later the architect of the Great Exhibition of 1851’s Crystal Palace was hired to plan and design the cemetery. Turning in his outline plan in the spring of 1846 with tree planting commencing in November of that year.
As well as being an early example of a garden cemetery London Road in Coventry is an early example of ecumenicalism. Near the main entrance to the cemetery, up a slight rise, there stands the romanesque Anglican Chapel. Further into the cemetery lies the neo-classical Non-Conformist Chapel. There is also a Jewish Chapel. Examples of how during Victorian times Britain began to find ways to accommodate the increasing number of creeds and faiths that were able to express and practice their faith freely and in public.
In common with other cemeteries of its era it has proven a struggle to maintain the grand buildings and lush grounds of London Road Cemetery after its Victorian heyday. Major conflict during the 20th Century did not help. As a major centre of Britain’s mechanical engineering industry Coventry was very heavily bombed during World War II. London Road Cemetery was not spared during the war due to its situation around major aircraft, automobile and armament factories. Bombs fell on the cemetery with the Non-Confirmist Chapel proving one of the victims. It has not been used since it fell victim to war damage over 80 years ago.
The war is present in other forms too. In addition to numerous military burials, London Road is the site of the mass grave of 808 victims of the Coventry Blitz. Many of them are thought to be war workers posted to Coventry who were killed during the bombardment and because they were not from the city remained unidentified.
After World War II, in no small part due to the turn towards heritage and the embrace of Victoriana, Coventry Road Cemetery became a Grade II* listed site in 1974. Though budgetary challenges, not least since the imposition of austerity, means that Coventry City Council has continued to struggle to maintain the building. In recent years Historic Coventry Trust, a third sector organisation with looks to restore and return historic buildings in the city to use, has taken on the Anglican Chapel, and restored it as an events venue as part of a National Lottery Heritage Fund project.
Route Notes
Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox
I create the Walk Midlands routes via Ordnance Survey Maps Explorer enabling me to take them on my phone. Subscribe yourself via the banner above.
This walk to Coventry’s London Road Cemetery begins from Coventry Railway Station.
Exit the station onto the forecourt and turn right passing the cluster of modern offices where most of Coventry City Council is based which lies between the station and the city’s inner ring road.
Walk straight down a road lined with large inter-war houses most now converted into offices. Until you reach an underpass.
Descend through the underpass, and on the far side turn right approaching Coventry Technology Park, part of Coventry University.
Turn left along a path which runs alongside the main access road for the Technology Park.
At the bottom of the path you come to a roundabout where you turn right, heading towards the Technology Park’s exit.
Here you see the red sandstone wall of London Road Cemetery ahead of you.
Turn left here to reach the entrance to the cemetery.
This is where the walk ends.
Getting Back
Given the short length of the walk London Road Cemetery it is not too far back to Coventry Railway Station which has frequent West Coast Mainline services, trains between Leamington Spa and Nuneaton, and on the Cross Country Route towards the south coast and north towards Manchester. There are also numerous frequent bus services from a stop on London Road right by the cemetery’s main entrance to Coventry’s city centre bus station. One of them is the X18 which runs from the city south towards Stratford-upon-Avon.