Hi Joan,Erica and David,
I have made direct telephone contact with the Genealogical Department of The City of
London Cemetery in Ilford and have seemingly unearthed a strange anomaly re St Dionis.
As you are aware, numerous exhumations were carried out in the latter part of the
1800's due to central London church demolitions and in most cases the bodies were
re-interred in the new Ilford cemetery.
As one would expect, the normal state of affairs was that the bodies were buried together
in a communal grave and marked as such. It seems that there are plenty of examples of this
happening for other inner London churches but not for St Dionis and there is now a certain
amount of head scratching going on because they can not find any records or grave at all!
There is apparently a memorial plaque which suggests that the bodies were accepted but no
records of transfer.
The indications are thus that the bodies are somewhere within this 200 acre site unmarked
and forgotten.
I detect a certain amount of embarrassment "well it was a long time ago now" etc
etc but they tell me that they are going to consult a local expert and see if they can
follow this up and let me know.
Joan: one suggestion from them was that we re check the St Dionis burial register for the
last entries to see if there is any evidence there?
I have no idea when St Dionis closed prior to demolition, was it weeks, months or years I
wonder?
Will keep you posted re developments.
Cheers Tim