A burned-out lodge in Nunhead Cemetery has been awarded £3.7 million in restoration money.
Arsonists ruined the East Lodge in the 1970s. Nearly 50 years later, a landmark revitalisation is drawing closer.
The cash, donated by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, will help convert the derelict shell into a cafe and community space.
The Grade-II listed lodge is a key feature of Nunhead Cemetery – the biggest of London’s ‘Magnificent Seven’.
Consecrated in 1840, the 52-acre grounds contain over 44,000 memorials and 290,000 burials.
The East Lodge was built as the cemetery’s office and later converted into a house for the Cemetery Superintendent.
Since the fire, it has fallen into disrepair and been clad in scaffolding. In 1988, it was added to Historic England’s ‘at risk’ list.
Southwark Council and Friends of Nunhead Cemetery (FONC) are leading the regeneration.
Their project will reinstate the building as a “welcoming gateway to the cemetery” with a new café, community space, and base for FONC.
The restored building will have insulation, air-source heat pumps, and traditional Victorian awnings.
Nunhead Cemetery is the resting place of notable Victorian figures including bus tycoon Thomas Tilling, writer William Brough and Sir Frederick Abel, the co-inventor of cordite.
There is also a memorial to the nine Walworth scouts who drowned off the coast of Sheppey while on an expedition in 1912.
The other six ‘Magnificent Cemeteries’ are Highgate Cemetery, Abney Park Cemetery, Brompton Cemetery, Tower Hamlets Cemetery, Kensal Green Cemetery and West Norwood Cemetery.
Jeremy Partington, Chair of Trustees at FONC, said: “This grant will enable the realisation of FONC’s forty-year aspiration to see the East Lodge restored for community use and to further promote the heritage and ecological importance of this wonderful Victorian landscape for contemporary enjoyment.”