Lawn cemeteries: the emergence of a new landscape of death

Abstract

The provision of space for burial is a common but rarely discussed feature of urban existence. Shifts in cemetery aesthetics reflect changing views on what might be thought appropriate landscapes in which to bury the dead. This article, for the first time in a UK context, describes and analyses the introduction of the lawn cemetery in the twentieth century, and gives the rise of cremation a central place in explaining the need to ‘reinvent’ the cemetery aesthetic.