All Souls’ Chapel, Poundsbridge,was built to supply a burial ground for the people of Penshurst when the churchyard of St John the Baptist’s Parish Church was closed for burials in 1857.

The foundation stone for “Penshurst Cemetery Chapel at Pounds Bridge” was “laid by Philip, Baron De L’Isle & Dudley”, the current scion of the Sidneys. The Sidneys had been established in Penshurst since the mid-16th century, and their stamp lies not only in the parish church memorials, but in the country’s history over the centuries. This particular Sidney was a cousin to the poet Percy Shelley. He had a parliamentary career, but not a glittering one –he was an MP for the smallest borough in the country (Eye), before being raised to the peerage, when he had a seat in the Lords, although he never spoke there. Nevertheless, it would have been incumbent upon him to see to the good order of his home seat, including the burial of the dead.

The cemetery movement was then still a relatively new one, prior to which burial grounds were quite unlike our current expectations –the turf constantly disturbed by frequent burials and re-burials, in almost overlapping graves, and the grounds often used for general refuse. In the midst of which would have been the table tombs of the wealthy, built to protect their occupant from the indignities of their neighbours. The disgust with this practice had been growing since the end of the 18th century, but the garden cemetery movement only really gained traction in the mid-19th century as the fear of ‘miasmas’ from the dead triumphed.

The Garden Cemetery was increasingly considered to be both hygienic, and also ‘morally improving’: to dispose of mortal remains in a single-use grave (with a view to the body’s efficientreunion with the dust of the earth) while the living could benefit from the aesthetic balm of the garden. Significantly, these new cemeteries were placed further away from the living than the old custom of churchyards. They were carefully landscaped and provided with purpose-built chapels for quiet reflection and final farewells.This is exactly what we see at the chapel and cemetery of All Souls, in Poundsbridge. The solemnity of All Souls is an ancient one, long paired with the feast of All Saints, which provided for the faithful an opportunity to remember and pray for the souls of their less spectacular dead than the great heroes of the Church.

Giving it as the name of this chapel is redolent with the Church’s tradition and ministry of caring for ‘everyday Christians’, providing a ministry of bereavement care that goes back to her earliest days.

Today, the chapel at All Souls is locked when there is no service taking place, and is not in use in the general pattern of services in the benefice.

There is a small outside tap tucked down behind the chapel, which is not drinking water. There is no kitchen or toilet facilities. There is a small step up into the chapel, but the cemetery is, while not flat, it is without steps. Parking is extremely limited, along the country lane