The Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery enjoy a rich and varied programme of lectures during the spring and summer months, which visitors are welcome to attend. The Friends are also available as speakers, to address other societies, conferences and events -- contact details are below.

TEXTILE ART & QUILTING WORKSHOPS
Monday, 10 March 2008
Quilter? Artist? Lunatic?
Talk by textile artist Ferret, followed by tea and cakes
13:00 in the Dissenters' Chapel, £3 on the door

Monday, 17 March 2008
From photographs to fabric
Tutorial with textile artist Ferret
11:00 in the Dissenters' Chapel, £10 on the door

Monday, 24 March 2008
Sewing Bee
Bring some hand sewing and enjoy working (and chatting) with like-minded people
10:30 in the Dissenters' Chapel, free

Monday, 31 March 2008
Art Quilt by Numbers
Workshop with textile artist Ferret
10:30 in the Dissenters' Chapel, £10 plus kit

Tuesday, 18 March 2008
CAMPAIGN LAUNCH: RESTORATION OF THE ANGLICAN CHAPEL
Guest lecturer: Dr. Roger Bowdler
18:00 to 20:00 in the Mayor's Parlour, Town Hall,
Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, Hornton Street, London W8
By invitation only, suggested donation £25
Application in PDF format

The Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery are launching their biggest campaign yet, to return Kensal Green’s damaged Grade I Listed Anglican Chapel to its original 19th century splendour. The first fund-raising event for this campaign is a reception with drinks and canapés in the Mayor’s Parlour at The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Town Hall, kindly hosted by the Mayor and Mayoress, Councillor and Mrs. Andrew Dalton. Our guest speaker will be Dr. Roger Bowdler, Head of Designation for English Heritage. For this evening, we are asking for contributions of at least £25.00 per person, to raise funds for a full restoration survey of the chapel. This is the first step in identifying what needs to be done, both to save the building and to give it a new lease of life. Of course, we warmly welcome further donations toward this important project. The Grade II* Listed Dissenters’ Chapel and Gallery were restored by the Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery in just this way 10 years ago and are now used regularly for a variety of Friends’ and community activities.

Sunday, 30 March 2008
LECTURE: ITALIAN MEMORIAL SCULPTURE
14:00 in the Dissenters' Chapel
Guest lecturer: internationally-acclaimed photographer Robert Freidus on the remarkable 19th and early 20th century memorial art of Italy.
£2 on the door for Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery, £3 for non-members, no booking required

SUMMER CONCERTS
Saturday, 7 June 2008 : Florian Rago (violin)
Saturday, 14 June 2008 : Florian Rago (violin) & Suzanne Szczetnikowicz (piano)
19:30 in the Dissenters' Chapel
Two concerts, featuring well-loved pieces from the violin repertoire, will recall the great 19th-century violinist and friend of Beethoven, George
Polegreen Bridgetower, who now rests in the catacomb beneath the Anglican Chapel. Performed in conjunction with the exhibition Eternal Metamorphosis, these evening concerts in the Dissenters' Chapel will be an unforgettable experience for both performers and audience.
Tickets on sale from April

DROP-IN WORKSHOPS
Saturday, 14 June & Sunday, 15 June 2008
Saturday, 21 June & Sunday, 22 June 2008
13:00 to 16:00 in the Dissenters' Chapel
Drop-in Workshop : Pinhole Photographs
Create your own photos using nothing more than a box with a hole in it and some film!
Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Eternal Metamorphosis.

Saturday, 21 June & Sunday, 22 June 2008
Saturday, 28 June & Sunday, 29 June 2008
13:00 to 16:00 in the Dissenters' Chapel
Drop-in Workshop : Make a Mural
Make your mark on a large surface painting animals, figures and symbols like a prehistoric person!
Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Eternal Metamorphosis.

Sunday, 22 June 2008
ARTISTS' TALK
15:00 to 16:00 in the Dissenters' Chapel
Pinhole artist, ceramicist and photographer Alexis Rago, in conjunction with the exhibition Eternal Metamorphosis.

Saturday, 21 June 2008
HARRY CLIFTON – A RATHER PRIVATE ENTERTAINER
19:00 for 19:30 in the Dissenters' Chapel
£10 on the door, including refreshments
The music hall and drawing-room vocalist 'Handsome' Harry Clifton is perhaps best remembered as the singer of 'Pretty Polly Perkins of Paddington Green', but he also wrote and performed many other hits of the day, including 'motto' songs such as 'Work Boys, Work, and Be Contented'. His memorial at Kensal Green was restored by the British Music Hall Society with funds raised by its President, Roy Hudd, OBE. Terry Lomas, Chairman of the Society's research group, will present a biographical sketch of Harry Clifton by the late Dr. Kathleen Barker, and perform a selection of Harry's songs, including some of the less well-known. His accompanist will be Steve Lethbridge, a highly accomplished musical director for operatic societies in north and west London.

Saturday, 5 July 2008
11.00 to 17.00
Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery Open Day 2008

EVENTS OF INTEREST ELSEWHERE

The Historic Chapels Trust
St George's German Lutheran Chapel, 55 Alie Street, London E1 8EB
Aldgate East tube station (Leman Street exit)
Free organ recitals on the first Thursday of every month at 13.00

The Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery's lectures are held in the Dissenters' Chapel on the east end of the cemetery, which has a discrete entrance on Ladbroke Grove, just north of the Grand Union Canal. For lectures, we ask for a donation of £3.00 from visitors, or £2.00 from Friends, on the door; light refreshments are offered before and after the lecture, when the Friends' bookstall will also be open.

Ladbroke Grove entrance

Entrance to the Dissenters' Chapel

Past lectures

1991
To Paradise by Way of Kensal Green (Julian Litten)

1992
Embalming and Presentation (Mark Bowis)

1993
The Architecture of Kensal Green Cemetery (Jennifer Freeman)
Transport of the Dead 1450-1900 (Julian Litten)
Methods of Disposal of the Dead (David Pescod)

1994
Italian Cemeteries: Florence, Genoa and Venice (John Ashby)
Cremation: A Hundred Years of Burning the Dead (David Pescod)
Embalming (David Pescod)
Church Monuments: From Coffin Lids to Weeping Widows (Isobel Sinden)

1995
The Butterflies of Kensal Green Cemetery (Tim Freed)
Gone but Not Forgotten: Famous People of the Past (June Firkins)
Extraordinary Epitaphs (Nigel Rees)
Prehistoric Burial Sites (Robert Stephenson)
Post-Mortem Movements and the Rise of the Vampire (David Pescod)
The Treatment of Post-Industrial Corpses (David Pescod)

1996
The Notorious Earl of Mornington and his Wanstead Connections (Peter Lawrence)
Brookwood Cemetery and Its Railway (John Clarke)
Church Monuments and the Gothic Revival (Dr. Thomas Cocke)
Frogmore Mausoleum and Royal Burials at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor (Leslie Grout)
Preserved Corpses (David Pescod)

1997
Vampires (David Pescod)
The Monuments of Kensal Green Cemetery and their Stylistic Development (Dr. Roger Bowdler)
Mount Auburn Cemetery: America’s First Garden Cemetery (Dr. Stephen Jerome)
Eric Gill’s Monuments at Kensal Green and Elsewhere (Dr. David Peace)
The Prehistoric Iceman (David Pescod)
The Life, Death, Burial and Resurrection Company (Dr. Ruth Richardson)

1998
Frederick Salmon and St. Mark's Hospital (James Thomson)
The 5th Duke of Portland and his Burrowing Career (Roger Morgan)
Death and the Victorians (Robert Stephenson)
Burial Vaults of the Aristocracy (Dr. Julian Litten)
Spontaneous Human Combustion (David Pescod)

1999
Excavating the Crypt of Christ Church, Spitalfields (Jez Reeve)
The Cult of the Ruin (Christopher Woodward)
The Surgeon, Cadaver and the Resurrectionist (Karen Howell)
The Landscape of Kensal Green Cemetery, Its Inspiration and Planting (Dr. Brent Elliott)
From Victoria to Diana: Changing Attitudes to Death (Dr. Tony Walter)
Well Hung in London: The City’s Execution Sites (Robert Stephenson)

2000
West Norwood Cemetery (Bob Flanagan)
A History of the Mausoleum (Robert Stephenson)
Thackeray: The Road to Vanity Fair (David J Taylor)
The Royal Mausolea at Frogmore (Hermione Hobhouse)
Tombstones (Dr. John Physick)
Funerary Symbolism (Don Bianco)

2001
Disposal of the Dead in the Hindu Kush (David Pescod)
Music Hall Artistes Buried at Kensal Green and Other London Cemeteries (Terry Lomas)
The Work of the Friends of War Memorials (Maggie Goodall)
Burial Before Undertakers: Death in Early Modern England (Clare Gittings)
The Bravo Murder Mystery (Nicholas Reed)
Sir Marc Brunel: The Forgotten Genius (Michael Bennett)

2002
The Growth of Cremation 1820-2000 (Rev. Peter C. Jupp)
Edward Young, Night Thoughts and the Genesis of the Garden Cemetery (Prof. James Stevens Curl)
Funerals and Funeral Directing in London: A Look at the Last 100 Years (Brian Parsons)
Cadavers in the Cloisters: Death in Medieval England (Robert Stephenson)
The Work of Memorials by Artists (Harriet Frazer)

2003
Preservation of the Dead (Andrea Britton)
The Heraldic Funeral (Dr. Julian Litten)
Blondin: The Man Who Walked Over Niagara (George Speaight)
Highgate Cemetery -- Past, Present and Future (Jean Pateman)

2004
The Work of the Natural Death Centre (Stephanie Wienrich)
Abney Park Cemetery (David Solman)
The Railway of the Great Northern Cemetery (Martin Dawes)
The Story of Andrew Pears and his Transparent Soap (Andrea Cameron)

2005
A Walk in the Paradise Garden: 19th Century London Cemeteries (Ken Worple)
Don’t Drop the Coffin (Barry Albin)
The Medieval Churchyards of the City of London (Val Pretlove)
Twenty Years in a Doleful Profession (Celia Smith)

2006
From Welbeck via Woking to Kensal Green -- The Early History of Cremation (Brian Parsons)
Sir Edwin Chadwick and the London Dead (Ruth Richardson)