When one of our guest members sent in images of three possible standing stones located in the middle of Kensal Green Cemetery, together with the observation that "one of the stones seemed to point to a raised area forming a circle at the middle of which is the Anglican chapel with a vast complex of crypts below", I was intrigued.
This appears to be a long-outstanding question which needed an answer.
An image of an unknown standing stone in Kensal Green Cemetery first appeared on the Geograph web site in May 2005:
Our guest member confirmed that this was the same stone as Stone 1 in the photographs he'd posted, just taken from a different angle.
Now this area of London must have a long history of occupation and different uses over the ages. Being located in Northumberland, I had to resist a very strong urge to hop on a train to West London and investigate in person. Fortunately these days, internet resources are superb, so I checked a number of available sources including the Archaeological Data Service; LAMAS; English Heritage Scheduled Ancient Monuments lists; images of boundary markers/posts (just in case); images of all monuments published on the Cemetery web site in case standing stones were mentioned or appeared, and read various histories and narratives on the creation of the Cemetery. Nothing.
What I did find out was that when Kensal Green Cemetery was created, the whole area was architecturally landscaped as a garden/park, which explains the architectural feature of the Anglican Chapel at the top of a mound as the focal point.
Our contributor very kindly provided grid reference points for each of the stones, using UK Grid Reference Finder, and agreed to an email being sent to both the Cemetery Manager and the Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery. The Cemetery Manager, Marie was very helpful in agreeing to locate the stones and get back to me.
Her reply, which arrived on Monday, 29th September, told me that she'd located stone three, and attached two images of this stone: "These images clearly show dedications to two people .... (stone number 3) sits ..... on grave number 41012 Square 153. As you can see there are plaques on it and therefore a dedicated memorial”.
Her email goes onto say that “I will let you know about the other 2 shortly. I know that one of them is a memorial and the other one needs further research”.
So, a mystery almost solved. Watch this space for an update on the third, and final, stone.
Something is not right. This message is just to keep things from messing up down the road