• Video installation at the chapel

    What’s On

    Book our upcoming heritage, ecology and community events and tours

    Events
  • Lush greenery at Abney Park

    Nature

    Learn more about Abney’s ecology - from trees and plants, to birds and bugs

    Ecology
  • Winter scene at Abney Park

    Donate

    Help keep this magical urban woodland sustainable for future generations

    Support Us
View of the Great Elm Walk at Abney Park

Welcome to Abney Park

Abney Park in Stoke Newington is one of London’s “Magnificent Seven” garden cemeteries, a woodland memorial park and a Local Nature Reserve. Abney Park Trust works with Hackney Council on the park’s heritage, ecology and community life.

Visit
Bostock lion sculpture

What To See

Literary event with Diane Abbott

What’s On

Headstones amongst plant life at Abney Park

Tours

Upcoming Events

Upcoming Events
After dark bat walk and survey at Abney Park
Aug 25
After dark bat walk and survey at Abney Park

Join Abney Park Trust for a night walk to encounter the bats who are just one of the many species of wildlife who reside in our nature reserve.

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Introduction to Abney's Ecology
Sept 6
Introduction to Abney's Ecology

Join Abney Park Trust for a walk through the site and an introduction to the site’s delicate and unique ecology. Abney Park was designated a local nature reserve in 1993, a central London woodland, a place where fungi can flourish on fallen trees and invertebrates find a home. 33 years on, as the climate emergency increases, inevitably the site’s importance and vulnerability increases and the need for support from its local community becomes more vital.

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Chapel Open Morning
Sept 6
Chapel Open Morning

Between 11am and 1pm join us for an opportunity to view inside the newly restored Abney Park Chapel.

And at 12 noon come to our free talk about the work of the Abney Unearthed project and its incredible work mapping the cemetery’s lost graves.

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Monthly History Tour
Sept 6
Monthly History Tour

Occurring on the first Sunday of every month and led by Abney Park Trust, this tour focuses on Abney Park's uniqueness – from its diverse permanent residents to the striking funerary architecture, as well as its historic dual function as both burial ground and arboretum since it opened in 1840.

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Radical Writers: 100 Years of John Berger, with guest speaker Lisa Appignanesi
Sept 16
Radical Writers: 100 Years of John Berger, with guest speaker Lisa Appignanesi

On this special evening, his lifetime friend and collaborator, Lisa Appignanesi – writer, former Chair of The Royal Society of Literature and the 2018 Man Booker International Prize – will be in conversation with writer and social historian Ken Worpole.

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Chapel Open Morning
Oct 4
Chapel Open Morning

Between 11am and 1pm join us for an opportunity to view inside the newly restored Abney Park Chapel.

And at 12 noon, as part of a celebration of Black History Month, come to our free talk about the life and times of JJ Fuller. Minister, orator and mission leader, Joseph Jackson’s spent over 40 years working in Cameroon before settling in Stoke Newington for his later life.

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Monthly History Tour
Oct 4
Monthly History Tour

Occurring on the first Sunday of every month and led by Abney Park Trust, this tour focuses on Abney Park's uniqueness – from its diverse permanent residents to the striking funerary architecture, as well as its historic dual function as both burial ground and arboretum since it opened in 1840.

Read more →
How to Get on With Everybody
Oct 6
How to Get on With Everybody

A film by Elin Moe and Winstan Whitter, How To Get On with Everybody is an intimate portrait of the unique life of Herschel Gluck, a Rabbi from the Haredi Jewish community. One of life's true optimists in a time of global tension, Rabbi Gluck reminds us that power lies in empathy and in our shared humanity.

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View All Events

Nature & Heritage

Commonwealth war memorial at Abney Park

History

Explore the history of Abney Park Cemetery

History
Robin perched on a mossy wall

Ecology

Learn about the ecology of Abney Park Nature Reserve

Ecology
Aerial view of the chapel in the sunshine

Restoration

Discover our restoration story

Restoration

Grave Searches

We can help you locate your family grave. To help us protect the memorials and the nature in Abney Park, please contact us so that we can advise you. We also offer Grave Maintenance & Remembrance Services .

Grave Searches

Support Us

Abney Park Trust is a registered charity that relies on donations; you can support us in a number of ways:

  • Donation icon

    Donate

    Help the Trust continue its care and promotion of this precious green space

    Donate now
  • Volunteering icon

    Volunteer

    Give the gift of time: share your skills with Abney Park Trust

    Volunteer

Latest News

News
Restoration of the James Braidwood Family Grave
Restoration of the James Braidwood Family Grave

Abney Park Trust is very happy to announce in June 2026 that the cleaning and restoration of Grade II listed monument to James Braidwood, father of the modern fire service, has been completed.

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Chair’s update, March 2026
Chair’s update, March 2026

Tom Walker, our chair, provides an update on what’s happening at APT.

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Chair’s update, November 2025
Chair’s update, November 2025

Find out more about what’s going on at Abney Park Trust in this chair’s update.

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Join us at Abney Park Trust's 2025 AGM
Join us at Abney Park Trust's 2025 AGM

Join us at Abney Park Trust’s 2025 AGM.

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Update on the Trust's changes to refresh the way it works
Update on the Trust's changes to refresh the way it works

In our last news Item, we explained the changes that Abney Park Trust proposed to how we operate. Find out the latest.

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Following years of campaigning to secure the future of Abney Park, the Trust confirms changes to refresh the way it works
Following years of campaigning to secure the future of Abney Park, the Trust confirms changes to refresh the way it works

We’re inviting groups to join for free, and we’re putting together a future plan for events and community work.

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Chair's update, July 2025
Chair's update, July 2025

Discover what’s happening at Abney thanks to an update from Tom, our chair.

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Chair's update, June 2025
Chair's update, June 2025

Tom Walker, our chair, gives an update on Abney Park Trust’s work.

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Shop

Featured
Equiano's Daughter - The Life and Times of Joanna Vassa
Equiano's Daughter - The Life and Times of Joanna Vassa
£10.00

Author: Dr. Angelina Osborne

In August 1797, Joanna Vassa, Gustavus' and Susannas’ only surviving child, was just over two years old and orphaned.

The Life and Times of Joanna Vassa is a remarkable achievement and adds another ripple in the trail to discover more about a great man and his legacy. This book was published in the year of the 200th anniversary since the act to abolish the transatlantic slave trade in Britain came into place.

This book honours the legacy of the relentless journey of an abolitionist and the journey to discover what happened to Joanna following his death. This book is also the first major attempt at constructing the Equiano story in 19th century Britain.

  • 31 pages

  • Published: 2007 by Krik Krak

  • ISBN: 0953432813

  • Binding: Paperback

  • Dimensions: 22 cm x 22 cm x 0.5 cm

Your purchase supports Abney Park Trust.

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Loddiges of Hackney
Loddiges of Hackney
£10.00

The Largest Hothouse in the World

Author: David Solman

For one hundred years, the most famous nursery garden in Europe stood near Mare Street, Hackney, close to today’s Town Hall.

Here tropical plants grew and flowered for the first time outside their native rainforest. Here too was a vast and well labelled rose collection which enabled the nearby Abney Park Cemetery to be laid out with 2,500 different kinds of trees and shrubs, making it the largest arboretum in Europe.

This well illustrated book brings the strands of this fascinating story together for the first time.

  • 96 pages

  • Published: 1995 by Hackney Society - Second Edition

  • ISBN: 0950655899

  • Binding: Paperback

  • Dimensions: 22cm x 22cm x 0.8cm

Your purchase supports Abney Park Trust.

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A Guide to Abney Park Cemetery
A Guide to Abney Park Cemetery
£10.00

Author: Paul Joyce

After a century of silence, this is in effect the fourth, the most lavishly illustrated of the sequence and, with extensive fresh research, it brings the history up to date because much in the cemetery has changed since the guide was originally published in 1983.

Paul Joyce's book has been described as the finest guide to a Victorian cemetery yet published and also contains an excellent history of Stoke Newington. Abney Park Cemetery has been described as 'the most highly ornamented cemetery in the neighbourhood of London'.

However, the real story of this place begins another two hundred years before and weaves its own intriguing strand of radical tradition; one moreover which helps to explain much about the cemetery's special character, its close identification with Isaac Watts and other nonconformist thinkers.

  • 132 pages

  • Published: 1994 by Abney Park Cemetery Trust - Second Edition

  • ISBN: 0950942022

  • Binding: Paperback

  • Dimensions: 22cm x 22 cm x 1cm

Your purchase supports Abney Park Trust.

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