Hither Green Cemetery and Hither Green Crematorium

Originally known as Lee Cemetery, Hither Green Cemetery opened in 1873, laid out by Francis Thorne, who was buried here in 1885. When it opened the cemetery occupied the northern part of the current site (see OS Map London CXXIX, 25ins to the mile, published 1897), at which time the surrounding area was largely open land and the cemetery was reached by Hither Green Lane. By 1914 the cemetery was renamed Hither Green Cemetery, and Hither Green Lane renamed Verdant Lane. To the south, on land later occupied by the extended cemetery, were allotment gardens. By 1948, additional land to the south of the original plot extended the cemetery and had a grid layout of paths and plots (OS 1:1250 TQ3972NE-A), the area to the south of which remaining in use as allotment gardens.

The original cemetery has heavily decorated iron entrance gates, good railings, meandering paths and drives, and is well-planted with ornamental evergreens, holly, yew, deodar, holm oak and other specimen conifers. Paths from the entrance lead to the two Gothic chapels with complex plans and intricate Decorated style tracery. The western Anglican chapel was designed by Thorne while the eastern Non-Conformist chapel, now disused and neglected, was built by William Webster. Most of the mature trees and shrubs are in the area around the pair of Gothic ragstone chapels, both of which survive, but the Gothic entrance lodge was demolished in the 1960s. Near the Non-conformist chapel is a notable mausoleum to John Taylor and family of 1903. Among those buried here is the well-respected local historian Leland Lewis Duncan (1862-1923) to whom the Lewisham Local History Society erected a gravestone to the right of the entrance in 1998 on the 75th anniversary of his death. In 1943 a huge crowd of 7,000 mourners gathered for the mass burial of 33 of the 44 victims of the bombing of Sandhurst Road School, Catford. Within the cemetery is a Second World War memorial and the graves of 39 Commonwealth service personnel from WWI and a further 198 from WWII. 

Beyond the original boundary of the Victorian cemetery, marked only by a ridge of tree stumps, is the cemetery extension, Crematorium and Garden of Remembrance, as shown on OS 1:10,560 Map TQ37SE-B published in 1968. Originally called Lewisham Crematorium, Hither Green Crematorium opened in 1956, and has a separate entrance lower down Verdant Lane through a semi-circular entranceway inscribed with its name. This leads to the large crematorium garden, which is formally landscaped on a small scale: dotted with small flowering trees and shrubs, blue cedars, willows, a somewhat bland long narrow water feature with some rocks, and paths with commemorative plaques.