History & Architecture
The London Cremation Company (LCC) has played a unique and highly significant role in the development of cremation since 1901, when it was founded by the Cremation Society of Great Britain specifically to build Golders Green Crematorium, the first metropolitan crematorium in London. The Grade 2 listed building, designed by the distinguished late-Victorian architect Sir Ernest George, together with the only Grade 1 listed Garden of Remembrance in the UK, designed by the leading landscape gardener William Robinson, combine to create a crematorium which enjoys unquestionable global distinction. The LCC’s place in cultural heritage cannot be over-estimated.
The company now owns six crematoria, Woking (1885), Golders Green (1902), St Marylebone (1937, acquired in 1990), Banbury (1999), Garden of England, Sittingbourne (2003). Thames View Crematorium (2017). A seventh will be opening in Lee-on-the-Solent in 2026.
1874
The Cremation Society, which remains the major shareholder of the LCC, was formed in 1874 to promote cremation as an alternative to burial. Its first President was Sir Henry Thompson, Queen Victoria’s physician and early members were drawn from the realms of medicine, law and the arts. The Society believed that the most effective way of promoting cremation was to build a crematorium. Woking Crematorium, the first in the UK, was opened in 1885, designed by Edward Clarke. Mrs Jeannette Pickersgill was the first person to be cremated there.
1890
In 1890 the council of the Cremation Society discussed a scheme for establishing a limited liability company to run Woking Crematorium, while maintaining the Cremation Society as a separate body for ‘purely scientific and propogandist purposes.’ Nothing came of the scheme until 1894, when the Society was approached by the Burial Board of Paddington, to build a crematorium in its cemetery in Willesdon. London architect Edward Clarke produced a design, but the Society decided against proceeding. The following year, five council members were deputed to search for a site of about an acre for a crematorium within driving distance of Marble Arch. In April 1899 the Council discussed the possibility of a providing a crematorium either in the Government-owned Brompton Cemetery, or a site to be determined in North London. The Brompton option fell through, the cemetery being taken over by the London County Council.
1899
At a council meeting in November 1899, council members William Robinson (landscape designer), Martin Ridley-Smith (city banker and one-time High Sheriff of London) and John Swinburne-Hanham (secretary), inspected another two north London sites and proposed the formation of a limited liability company, the London Cremation Company Ltd, with a capital of £25,000 divided into 10,000 preference and 15,000 ordinary shares of £1 each. The company would have between three and six directors.
1900
The company was registered in October 1900, by which time negotiations to purchase 12 acres of land at Hendon were well advanced. The society bought 2,000 shares and the LCC shared its offices in Regent Street. It also agreed that the society’s then secretary, George Noble, act as the company’s secretary. Golders Green Crematorium was opened in 1902, the year of the passing of the Cremation Act. Its handsome design, in a Lombard Romanesque style by one of the country’s leading architects, together with its beautiful landscaping, secures its place, not only as the LCC’s flagship crematorium, but also as progressive architectural expression of cremation, highly respected across the world.
1933
In 1933, the society added the crematorium at Woking to the company, but in 1955 lost control of its crematoria. Control was regained in 1962, the negotiations resulting in the society becoming the major shareholder, which remains the case today.
1991
In 1991, St Marylebone was added to the company’s portfolio. Built by St Marylebone Borough Council, the crematorium was originally planned in 1927, but not opened until 1937. Designed by the distinguished architect Sir Edwin Cooper RA, the architect of St Marylebone Town Hall (1911-18), its subtle, restrained and assured form of classicism, executed in red brick with tiled roofs, together with its beautifully proportioned cloister arranged around a grass lawn, renders it one of the finest interwar crematoria in the UK.
1999
In 1999 the Company embarked on the building of its first new crematorium since Golders Green. Banbury, Oxfordshire, was designed by Hugh Thomas, architect of Bury St Edmund’s Crematorium, Suffolk (1989). The single-storey design is anchored carefully to its site by careful positioning and landscaping, linking the building to the surrounding countryside. Nestling on a ledge, it commands impressive views from its chapel windows across the valley.
2003
Garden of England Crematorium, Sittingbourne, Kent followed in 2003, again by Hugh Thomas. It stands on a site in open farmland in Bobbing and as at Banbury, Thomas used barrel vaulted roofs to mark out the circulation route through the building and the axes of the composition. Gold medal-winning landscape architects, James Blake Associates, were responsible for the gardens which have matured exceptionally well and are much admired both by mourners and the wider public.
2017
Thames View Crematorium and Cemetery, Gravesend, Kent 2017, commands fine views across the river. Planned originally by Co-op Funeral Services, but built finally by the LCC, it was designed by Clague Architects, of Harpenden and Canterbury. The building makes respectful references to the local Kentish architecture, the firm maintaining that their architecture varies in style 'according to places, context and collaboration and programme'. The site has a 27-acre Memorial Park, with a formal cemetery, woodland burial area and extensive gardens laid aside for wildlife.
Today
The LCC’s most recent development is Lee-on-the-Solent. The proposed crematorium has been designed by Thomas Wilson Architects and conforms to the highest specifications in terms of environmental requirements and aspirations.
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