Paradise, by way of Kensal Green

Nothing could be more enlivening than a walk round Kensal Green Cemetery in London, the capital’s first great necropolis, founded in 1832.

Whatever your passion, with all those who are buried here, the inventors, writers, entertainers etc – every one of them of them of top-notch interest – the very essence of their roots and shoots can be joyfully relished within these walls.

Surrounded by the scrunching cityscape of the Harrow Road, it suddenly appears; a vast tract of Arcadia, a place that makes your spirits soar to screaming delight.

Trollope lies here, as does Sir Charles Locock, who delivered all Queen Victoria’s children. Blondin the tightrope-walker is buried at Kensal Green; so too is W H Smith – with a marble book atop his grave. Charles and