PARK AND CEMETERY . 
2 80 
STORIES OF SOME HISTORIC GARDEN BURIALS 
Stories of some celebrated people 
who were buried in private gardens 
in Europe is one indication of the 
fact that the sentiment for park-like 
burial places is not altogether a mod- 
ern one. 
The interment of the remains of the 
late Lord Nunburnholme in the mid- 
dle of the lawn of his Italian garden 
has not had a parallel since the body 
of Mr. Charles Waterton (1782-1865), 
the celebrated naturalist, was laid to 
rest in a garden grave of his own 
choosing, namely, a cultivated spot 
between two oak trees, lying on the 
bank of the lake in Walton Park, 
Yorkshire. Mr. Waterton had en- 
closed his domain with a high wall, 
and in order to preserve his magnifi- 
cent wild ornithological collection, 
comprising thousands of widgeons, 
teals, pochards, coots, and Canadian 
geese, allowed no gun to be fired 
within the park. A remarkable inci- 
dent at his funeral was a flight of the 
birds, which he had so fondly pro- 
tected during his lifetime. These ap- 
peared to follow the cortege, as it 
proceeded by water to the burial 
place, and the strange spectacle of 
the air literally black with birds 
uttering plaintive cries, aroused 
an eerie sensation among mourners. 
Garden burial, in lieu of ordinary 
interment in churchyard or vault, once 
enjoyed a considerable vogue among 
diversified classes of the community. 
In the garden of Longner Park, near 
Shrewsbury, there may still be seen 
the tomb of Mr. Robert Burton, a 
direct ancestor of the present proprie- 
tors. Mr. Burton was a “zealous as- 
serter of the Gospel all Queen Mary’s 
days,” and he is said to have died for 
joy on hearing the Shrewsbury bells 
ring out the accession of Good Queen 
Bess. But the old order could not be 
dislodged in an instant. When the 
funeral party presented itself at the 
family place of burial, the Roman 
Catholic priests still in possession de- 
nied the right of burial to a Protes- 
tant, so the coffin was taken back to 
Longner, and interred in the garden. 
Many of the Puritans were staunch 
advocates of garden burial, inasmuch 
as they grafted this mode of inter- 
ment upon the passage in the Old 
Testament, which states that Manas- 
seh. King of Judah, “slept with his 
fathers, and was buried in the garden 
of his own house, in the garden of 
Uzza.” Robert Hutton, of Houghton, 
Durham, an ex-captain of Ironsides, 
who died in 1680, was buried in his 
garden, where a crumbling altar tomb 
is said still to mark the spot. Again, 
in 1684, we read of the widow of an- 
other Cromwellian warrior, named 
Taylor, being buried in the garden of 
her house at Brighouse, “standing up- 
right,” and side by side with her hus- 
band and daughter, who had been pre- 
viously interred in like fashion. After 
the Restoration the practice became 
quite a rage among the upper classes, 
and the idea especially recommended 
itself to men of letters, wits, and dilet- 
tanti, as a protest against the horrible, 
insanitary system of interring corpses 
a few feet below the floor of churches. 
Evelyn often refers approvingly to 
this early attempt at burial reform, 
and also states that an author, named 
Sumner, was compiling a treatise — 
“On Garden Burial.” The celebrated 
Sir William Temple desired that his 
remains should rest in his beautiful 
garden at Moor Park, but his wishes 
were only partially fulfilled, for while 
his heart is buried beneath a sun-dial 
there, his body -lies beside that of his 
wife in Westminster Abbey. “Though 
he laid not his whole body in his gar- 
den,” writes Evelyn, “he deposited the 
better part of it there.” A pathetic 
little story in connection with garden 
burial at the time of the Great Plague 
is revealed by the parish registers of 
Great Hampden, Bucks. The incum- 
bent notes the death of his youngest 
daughter, “returned to us from visit- 
ing our relations in London,” who 
dies of the pestilence, and is buried 
in the rectory garden. Then follows 
another date, and mention of the 
death of another child, and again of 
another and another, until five chil- 
dren are described as having suc- 
cumbed to the plague and buried in 
the garden. All of these entries are 
in the father’s handwriting, and they 
are followed by another in the hand- 
writing of his successor, recording the 
death of the bereaved parent himself, 
who was the last to take the con- 
tagion, and of his remains being bur- 
ied, even as the others had been, “in 
the garden.” 
In some cases, however, garden bur- 
ial has been selected as the result of 
a whim or eccentricity. Baskerville, 
the celebrated painter, left directions 
that he should be buried in the gar- 
den of his Birmingham residence, his 
wish proceeding from some curious 
disbeliefs in the Book of Revelations. 
Half a century after his death, in 
1775, the land being required for 
building purposes, the remains were 
disturbed, and re-interred in the 
graveyard of Cradley Chapel. The 
Rev. Langton Freeman, of Whilton, 
Northamptonshire, who died in 1783, 
left the following singular instructions 
for his interment: Five days after 
death, his body was to be wrapped in 
a double winding sheet and to be laid 
in the bed in a summer-house, in 
which he had slept during his life- 
time. The doors and windows of this 
fragile mausoleum were to be locked, 
and the building planted around with 
evergreens, and the latter fenced off 
with oak pales, painted dark blue. 
His wishes were carried out to the 
letter. Twenty years ago some vandal 
broke into the summer-house and dis- 
turbed the remains, after which a 
heavy stone slab was placed over the 
decayed bedstead and what it con- 
tained. Quite recently we understand 
the remains were removed to the 
churchyard, but the summer-house 
still remains unchanged. 
To the above instances of burials 
in gardens may be added the notable 
case of Richard Wagner, the great 
composer, who died at Venice on 
February 13th, 1883, and was buried 
on the 18th of that month in the gar- 
den attached to his house (“Villa 
Wahnfried”) at Bayreuth. “Richard 
Wagner is, and probably will remain” 
(writes an admirer of his) “the most 
illustrious personage in the world’s 
history who found sepulture in a pri- 
vate garden.” 
