Highgate Cemetery Act 2022

2022 CHAPTER i

An Act to confer powers upon the Friends of Highgate Cemetery Trust to operate, maintain and conserve Highgate Cemetery and to extinguish rights of burial and disturb human remains in Highgate Cemetery for the purpose of increasing the space for interments and the conservation of Highgate Cemetery; and for connected purposes.

[24 March 2022]

WHEREAS—

(1)

The London Cemetery Company (“LCC”) was incorporated by an Act of the sixth and seventh years of the reign of His Majesty King William the Fourth, entitled “An Act for establishing Cemeteries for the Interment of the Dead, Northward, Southward, and Eastward of the Metropolis, by a Company to be called “The London Cemetery Company” (“the 1836 Act”) and, under the powers of that Act, purchased lands formerly in the urban district of Saint Pancras, in the county of Middlesex, and now in the London Borough of Camden (“the Borough”) and constructed a cemetery (“the cemetery”) on a portion of the said lands:

(2)

Further provisions were made with regard to the cemetery and further powers were conferred on LCC by an Act of the sixth year of the reign of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, entitled “An Act for amending the Act establishing “The London Cemetery Company” and the London Cemetery Company Act 1911:

(3)

The cemetery is situated on that portion of the lands purchased by LCC under the 1836 Act which lies on the east and west sides of Swains Lane in the Borough:

(4)

The Friends of Highgate Cemetery Trust (“the Trust”) is now the registered proprietor of the cemetery, and operates and manages the cemetery as a public burial ground in accordance with the Trust's charitable objects:

(5)

In order that better use may be made of the land in the cemetery for burials, it is expedient that the Trust be authorised to extinguish certain rights of burial granted in graves in the cemetery and to disturb, or authorise the disturbance of, human remains interred in such graves and also in graves where no rights of burial exist, for the purpose of increasing the space for further interments in such graves and conserving the cemetery and to use appropriately or remove altogether from the cemetery memorials on such graves:

(6)

It is expedient that the other provisions contained in this Act should be enacted:

(7)

The objects of this Act cannot be attained without the authority of Parliament:

May it therefore please your Majesty that it may be enacted, and be it enacted, by the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—