Gap Road Cemetery

The cemetery was set up by the Burial Board in 1876 on a site that slopes gently upwards from south to north and from the main entrance practically the whole site was visible. The OS 6 ins to the Mile (Surrey VII, surveyed 1876) shows fields in the area north of the roadway now called Gap Road (so named for Gap Lodge, a building to the west of the London and South Western railway line). A letter from a dissatisfied ratepayer in the Surrey Comet on 10 April 1877 complains of the state of the ground. The cemetery was laid out for £6,000 with two Gothic chapels (Church of England and Non-Conformist) by Sir Banister Fletcher, with a centrally placed mortuary chapel, lodge at the entrance on Gap Road, laid out with a simple grid pattern of paths and perimeter path. The OS map of 1893 (London XIV.18) shows the layout with trees planted on the cemetery boundaries; at that time land to the north, west and east remained open, with housing beginning to be built south of Gap Road. By 1911, the land to the west was the site of an Isolation Hospital, with Allotment Gardens to the east, and open land to the north (OS 25 ins Map Surrey VII.11, revised 1911). The original 20 acres were subsequently enlarged by a further 8 to the north (see OS 25ins map Surrey VII.11, revised 1933), the extension on slightly higher ground than the level of the original cemetery, with short flights of steps between old and new and the old boundary indicated by trees and a number of brick and stone piers of the original cemetery.  The War Memorial commemorating the dead of both world wars takes the form of the Cross of Sacrifice in Portland stone and bronze; the sword was stolen at some point but replaced in 1988. The War Memorial is shown on the post-war OS map (TQ2571-A, revised 1949) south of the Mortuary, with a drinking fountain marked to the north. A further area of land to the west of the extension is also marked as cemetery land. By the 1960s, a strip of land to the east of the original ground over part of the Allotments has been added to the cemetery (OS TQ2471-TQ2571-BB, revised 1957); this map now shows the site of the Isolation Hospital as Poplar Court housing development.

The two small chapels are on either side of the main axial entrance route; an early C20th postcard shows the chapel from a path, with flowerbeds set into neat grass. The central mortuary chapel in the cemetery today is of more modern date. The original cast iron gates are still in place at the main entrance where there are a few roses and the cemetery has scattered trees particularly along its boundaries. At the rear of the cemetery are old entrance gates leading to Pitt Crescent dating from when the cemetery was first extended. The more elaborate tombs are in the older area and there are some unusual graves including that of Kezia Leete (d.1921) with ceramic arches; the Cooke Mausoleum, 1885, described by Hugh Meller as 'the best building in the place' is on the western boundary - Italianate with pink and grey granite, it originally had stained glass. Mayors and other local dignitaries are buried here; a stone commemorates Belgian refugees who died in Wimbledon in WWI in Roman Catholic area. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission records 129 headstones to casualties from both world wars in the cemetery.