Strange City: Thomas Willson and the Primrose Hill Pyramid

Artwork: Laura Haines

By Dan Carney:

In the late 18th and early 19th Centuries, increased migration into London and rising fertility rates caused the city’s population to almost double, from 750,000 in 1760 to 1.4m by 1815. Burial space was at a premium. London’s graveyards, generally centuries old, were already foul smelling and disease-ridden, overpopulated and unfit for purpose. Bodies were buried on top of others, with older corpses sometimes even exhumed, then scattered, in order to make space for fresh ones. By the 1820s, with the widespread implementation of cremation still several decades away, it was clear that the problem had grown too pressing to ignore. A lively public discussion was underway regarding the reformation of interment practices. 

A popular idea was the building of large out-of-town garden-style cemeteries - something first considered over one hundred years earlier by Christopher Wren - but architect Thomas Willson suggested an alternative solution. Inspired by the craze for ancient Egypt that was sweeping Europe, Willson proposed the construction of a vast pyramid mausoleum atop Primrose Hill. With a 40-acre base as large as Russell Square and a height of 1500 feet (four times the height of St. Paul’s), the 94-storey, granite-faced structure would contain 215,219 storage vaults, arranged honeycomb-like along concentric corridors, accessed via ramps and hydraulically powered lifts. There would be capacity for five million bodies, as many as could be interred in a more conventional 1000-acre “horizontal” cemetery. At the summit would be an astronomical observatory.

Willson first exhibited his idea at the Kings Mews exhibition space at Charing Cross in 1828 before publishing the plans in full two years later. He described his pyramid as a “coup d’oeil of sepulchral significance unequalled in this world”. It would “teach the living to die, and the dying to live forever”, and be the centerpiece of an ornamental site, where families coming to pay their respects to loved ones could picnic on the grass outside. It would also offer investors the chance to make a killing - freehold vaults would cost between £100 and £500, depending on size and location, with further income generated by leasing additional vaults to parishes. Willson estimated that, once filled - at a rate of around 40,000 burials annually for 125 years - his structure would bring in a profit of almost £8.2m. He set up the Pyramid General Cemetery Company in order to promote the project to interested parties. 

Reactions to Willson’s ideas were mixed. The London Literary Gazette was unequivocally hostile, writing: “This monstrous piece of folly, the object of which is to have generations rotting in one vast pyramid of death… is perhaps the most ridiculous of the schemes broached in our scheming age.” One prominent figure in the burial reform movement, John Claudius Loudon, was impressed with the capacity but also had reservations. Writing in the Morning Advertiser, Loudon feared the expulsion of foul-smelling gasses – “mephitic exhalations” - and was also perturbed by the idea of bodies being buried away from the earth, in “…any way which prevents the body from speedily returning to its primitive elements, and becoming useful by entering into new combinations – vegetable, mineral, or even animal, in aquatic burial.”

Willson’s plans went as far as being presented to parliament in 1830, but interest ultimately petered out, with planners and architects favouring the idea of garden cemeteries. Willson, however, persisted, resurfacing over two decades later at the Great Exhibition in Crystal Palace in 1851 with a model of a “Great Victoria Pyramid” mausoleum, earmarked for Woking Common but similar to his previous plan in most other ways. The project received favourable press coverage and another attempt was made to find investors, but interest again waned. Willson’s last sepulchral pyramid-related activity appears to have been in 1853, when he was accused of defrauding a young man called James Sykes, who had offered a £200 inducement loan to anyone offering him employment. Willson hired Sykes in the office of a “British Pyramid National Necropolis Company”, and had received the money, but had fired him several months later with no sign of repayment. Willson died in 1866, but his idea endured, at least in his own family. His son Thomas, also an architect, submitted a plan in 1882 for a pyramidal mausoleum to house the body of the recently assassinated US President James Garfield. Garfield’s widow was, however, unimpressed, and chose another design for her husband’s final resting place.  

Although the likes of Kensal Rise, Highgate, and the City of London demonstrate that the garden cemetery enthusiasts won the argument, Willson’s abandoned plans offer an intriguing insight into an alternate London, one in which his pyramidal sepulchre – taller than The Shard – would be the highest building in the city (and third highest in Europe), one of its most debated and controversial structures. The designer Laura Haines offers a glimpse into this parallel world in her 2016 project Metropolitan Sepulchre, envisaging the vast structure amidst the Blitz, then surviving as a tourist attraction, dominating the modern skyline. 

The Egyptian theme may have been a voguish peculiarity of the era, but with burial space running out in cities all over the world, particularly those high in populations for whom cremation is taboo, the idea of vertical burial structures in London – or its vicinity - may one day resurface. Some boroughs are now completely out of space and are “recycling” existing plots, back to burying fresh bodies on top of old. Vertical burial methods have been used in other cities for a while. The world’s tallest cemetery, the Memorial Necrópole Ecumênica in Santos, Brazil, opened in 1983 and hosts around 16,000 burial units over 14 storeys. Current extension plans will see it rise when complete to 32 storeys, with space for 25,000 units. Echoing Willson’s vision of his pyramid as part leisure destination, the building also features a tropical garden, with turtles and a waterfall, as well as a classic car museum. 

In Petah Tikva, Israel, a 22-metre high structure at the Yarkon cemetery offers space for 250,000 bodies, with Judaism’s requirement that bodies be buried in earth cleverly fulfilled by dirt-filled pipes inside the building’s columns, technically connecting each layer to the ground. The six-storey Kouanji Buddhist temple in Tokyo requires mourners to use swipe cards to have their loved ones’ remains delivered to them via a conveyor belt system. Ideas for vertical burial structures have also been seriously discussed in cities as diverse as Mumbai, Paris, Oslo, Mexico City, and Verona. It may be that Thomas Willson’s ideas, usually a strange footnote in articles on unrealized buildings or 19th Century Egyptian Revival architecture, were simply slightly ahead of their time. 

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Dan Carney is a writer, musician, and lecturer from northeast London. He has released two albums as Astronauts via the Lo Recordings label, and also works as a composer/producer of music for TV and film. His work has been heard on a range of television networks, including BBC, ITV, Channel 4, HBO, Sky, and Discovery. He has also worked as an academic psychology researcher, and has authored articles on subjects such as cognitive processing in genetic syndromes and special skills in autism. His other interests include walking, hanging around in cafes, and spending far too much time thinking about Tottenham Hotspur.

Boneyard

By Claire Margaret Howe:

There are very few places I would happily spend the rest of eternity. The graveyard in Miobhaigh is one of them. It’s a stone’s throw from the seashore, lapped by the cold water of the north Atlantic. It sits squarely between the sea and the sky and on a sunny day it throws up a solid blue vista. The air is so clean that it is frequently thronged with midges, making it almost unliveable. It is surrounded on four sides by a dry-stone wall clad with lichen, ivy and a few flowering bushes. On the seaward side there is an accommodating dip in the wall that makes for a scenic seat. I like to sit there and watch small fishing boats trawl up and down checking their lobster pots. On a calm day the noises of busy work and conversational shouts carry up from the boats. In early autumn seals bask on the rocks at low tide and their occasional barks break the easy silence of the valley. Delicate sea pinks grow along the high tide mark. Strategically speaking, the graveyard is well placed to avoid surprises. Guarded on one side by a long stretch of sea, the east and western reaches are swathed in high grass and marshland. The occasional industrious beast grazes them; usually a donkey with an alarm call that reverberates for miles around. The sprawling brambles house birds that will alight noisily at the sight of any intruders. It is accessed only by a long, winding lane that twists steeply down the valley. The graveyard’s inhabitants – myself and the spirits – have ample opportunity to survey visitors before their arrival. 

This graveyard is very old. Local tradition puts it at ‘chomh sean leis an gceo agus nios sinne faoi dho’. Roughly translated, as old as the fog and twice as old again. Its earth is packed to capacity. It has been decommissioned as a burial ground, but exceptions are made. My grandmother is here, one of the last burials allowed. And my grandfather’s ashes – there was room for an urn, but not a coffin. Often, gravediggers would disturb an old grave, or unearth a coffin, or old bones. I remember hearing about occurrences of it as a child. It was never a cause for unnecessary ceremony. Coffins were re-buried. Bones were lifted from the ground, placed in a small sack and put to one side while the funeral of the day took place. After all the mourners had left, the old bones would be placed carefully alongside the new coffin, and the grave was filled. When the remains of several bodies were disturbed, they were grouped together and placed in one coffin. After decades of this practice, it was not unusual to open a coffin and find six or seven skulls. Once or twice, I have watched the gravediggers at work, silently sweating, and heard the rhythmic clink of spades on stony soil. The ground is treated with respect, but no solemn pomp or pageantry. It is a place of peaceful purpose. 

The graveyard is multi-denominational, much like death. It was used by every village and household for miles around. The deceased from across the peninsula were rowed over in currachs, traditional skin boats. There is a ‘coffin stone’ on the shore were the bodies rested before being carried to the grave. Surrounded by fishing villages, many of its inhabitants are victims of drowning. The locals believed that those who drowned lasted longer in the earth due to the salt in their bodies. The graveyard has seen epidemics and war and famine. There are hundreds of children buried here from the tuberculosis outbreaks in the 1900’s. Sitting on the wall watching the grass rustling over the graves, unwelcome thoughts must intrude. The southernmost corner is clear of headstones. This corner, not unique to this graveyard, is known as ‘the lonely corner’. Unchristened babies and suicide victims were not permitted on consecrated ground. Traumatised families, fearful of their lost ones spending an eternity in hell, would bribe clerics to bury their dead here. Buried at night, the graves weren’t marked, and the deceased were not spoken of again. This graveyard saw the rise and fall of Ireland’s booming trade in graverobbing in the 18th and 19th century. Fortunately, I can find no evidence to suggest that the trade disturbed the inhabitants of this soil. There would be little anonymity in small rural villages to protect graverobbers. It is comforting to think that for all the hardship my companions might have endured in life, they at least didn’t see this ignominy in death. This ground is, in all respects, a final resting place. 

Perhaps that’s why the graveyard is a peaceful place to sit and think. Here, where so many were committed to the earth, I am never lonely. Still, when I look at the unmarked corner and the flagstones where desperate people made offerings to a wealthy church, I can’t help but think that graveyards would be decidedly more pleasant without the oppressive religious overtones and the distressing histories. But then, I reason, they would be parks, and parks are often boring – with history as featureless as their lawns. This old boneyard has a history and a presence that will keep me sharp and keep me humble. I am happy to sit with these spirits, these old grafters. Soldiers, sailors, scholars. Crowded and muddled as they are, they have a quiet place to observe the fishing boats haul in their loads. Only the keening of the gulls to disturb them. 

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Claire Margaret Howe is a freelance writer and mixed media artist based in Ireland. She divides her time between the sea and the hills and draws inspiration from both. She can be contacted at clairehowewriting@gmail.com