Golders Green Crematorium
columbarium and crematorium in London
Golders Green Crematorium and Mausoleum was the first crematorium to be opened in London, and is one of the oldest crematoria in Britain. The land for the crematorium was purchased in 1900, costing £6,000 (equivalent to £637,620 in 2025) and the crematorium was opened in 1902 by Sir Henry Thompson, founder of the Cremation Society.
Golders Green Crematorium, as it is usually called, is in Hoop Lane, off Finchley Road, Golders Green, in northwest London, near Golders Green Underground station. It is directly opposite the Golders Green Jewish Cemetery. The crematorium is secular and accepts all faiths and non-believers. The crematorium gardens are listed at Grade I in the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.
History
The lawfulness of cremation in Great Britain was not established until 1885. The Woking Crematorium had already been built in Woking and proved successful. At that time, cremation was championed by the Cremation Society of England. This society was governed by a council, at that time led by Sir Henry Thompson (president and founding member).
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This entry incorporates text from “Golders Green Crematorium” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.