Hyde Park’s Secret Pet Cemetery: The Tiny Victorian Graveyard London Forgets to Talk About

How a gatekeeper’s garden became one of the city’s most strangely moving corners and how you can respectfully see it today.

There’s a very small, very quiet piece of Victorian London that sits almost hidden beside one of the city’s busiest roads: a miniature graveyard of dogs, cats even a monkey or two tucked into the keeper’s garden at Victoria Gate, Hyde Park. It’s the sort of thing you wouldn’t expect to find in a royal park, and that’s exactly why it’s the sweetest secret.

The story begins with a dog called Cherry, and ends up being a Victorian lesson in grief, class and the odd human need to mark loss with stone. If you like gentle oddities, family history, or the little domestic dramas that make the past feel alive, this place will quietly insist you slow down and listen.

How a garden patch became a city’s first pet cemetery

In 1881 a small white Maltese named Cherry died. Her owners the Barned family asked Mr Winbridge, the keeper at the Victoria Gate lodge, if Cherry could be buried in the lodge garden. Winbridge agreed and dug a little grave. That single, private burial attracted attention, and within a year the garden had become something more organised: neighbours, passers-by and local families began bringing their animals for burial in the same plot. Not long after, when Prince a dog belonging to Sarah Fairbrother (the wife of Prince George, Duke of Cambridge) was killed near the gate, the cemetery’s profile rose further.

Over the late 19th century the site grew. The graves are small and regular modest markers arranged like rows of toy tombstones. Some bear simple names Prince, Tiny, Rover while others carry the Victorian penchant for poetic epitaphs: “After life’s fitful slumber, he sleeps well,” or “We are only sleeping, Master.” There are dogs, cats, a handful of birds, and even a few more exotic burials recorded in contemporary accounts. By the time the cemetery was largely closed to general burial around 1903, historians estimate it had become the resting place for up to about a thousand animals, with several hundred surviving headstones still visible today.

Why Victorians did this grief, status and changing ideas about animals

It might look quaint now, but the pet cemetery reveals a lot about attitudes in Victorian Britain. In the late 1800s, the idea that animals were deserving of marked burial and that ordinary people might choose to memorialise a pet in stone — was still relatively new. Pet cemeteries were a continental fashion that some upper- and middle-class English families began to adopt; the Hyde Park site is often described as one of the first public pet cemeteries in Britain. The choice of small, human-like headstones shows how people were beginning to treat companion animals as beings with emotional value, not just livestock or property.

There’s a social layer too. The people who used the cemetery were often local and well-connected wealthy families that frequented Hyde Park and had ties to the lodge-keeper. That said, the cemetery wasn’t an exclusive enterprise run for profit; Mr Winbridge carried out the burials modestly and carefully, tending the plot and planting it to make a place of honour for the dead animals.

The stones you can still see small, intimate, and surprisingly human

If you catch a glimpse of the cemetery from the public path, what strikes you first is scale. These “headstones” are tiny about the size of a house-brick but they read like human gravestones: dates, names, small epitaphs. On many you’ll find a simple note that reads like a whisper: “Poor Rover, 1894.” Some stones are weathered, others still clear and readable; ivy and ferns have slowly claimed the spaces between the rows, making the whole garden feel like a domestic ruin.

The precise numbers are a little messy a reminder that this was a living, messy thing, not an archive exercise. Different sources note several hundred readable stones; archaeological and historical studies place the number of known headstones around the low hundreds, while total burials over the cemetery’s lifetime are sometimes cited as closer to a thousand. The differences come from later burials, unmarked graves and the fact that the garden was used sporadically after it was mostly closed.

Famous visitors and odd footnotes

Odd little human stories threaded through the cemetery’s history make it feel like a piece of micro-drama in London’s tapestry. George Orwell once visited and in his blunt way called it “perhaps the most horrible spectacle in Britain,” an observation that gives you a small, odd jolt when you read it in the context of how tender the site otherwise feels. The burial of Prince for Sarah Fairbrother a figure connected to royalty helped put the cemetery on London’s social map in the 1880s.

Can you go inside? (Important: please don’t trespass)

This is the part where the modern etiquette matters. The cemetery is on Royal Parks land but it sits inside the garden of Victoria Lodge and because of the risk of vandalism and its fragile historic fabric it is not open to the public on a free, walk-in basis. The gate and railings around the lodge mean you can see the stones through the bars from nearby public paths (Bayswater Road offers a good viewpoint), but you must not try to climb fences or force access. That would be illegal and damaging to a fragile heritage site.

If you want to see the cemetery properly, The Royal Parks runs occasional supervised viewings and short walking tours that include a glimpse into the lodge garden; these are ticketed and limited so they don’t expose the site to vandalism. The official Royal Parks page lists occasional tours and events tied to the cemetery and is the correct place to check if you’d like to visit legally and respectfully. It’s the only way in.

How to find it from the outside (without trespassing)

If you’d rather keep it simple: stand on Bayswater Road by Victoria Gate (around Marble Arch / Lancaster Gate area) and look into the lodge garden from the public path. You’ll see tiny headstones behind iron railings and hedging. It’s quiet, moving and a little eerie a perfect micro-visit if you’re walking the park and want a small, contemplative stop. Directions:

• Tube: Marble Arch (Central Line) or Lancaster Gate (Central Line) are the closest major stations.
• Walk from Marble Arch along the Bayswater Road to Victoria Gate; the lodge garden is immediately adjacent.
• Please respect the railings, the plants, and the fact that this is protected heritage land.

Why this small plot still matters today

Beyond being a charming curiosity, the pet cemetery tells a larger story about how modern Britain learned to love and publicly grieve non-human companions. The tiny headstones are more than epigraphs; they’re evidence of emotional worlds once overlooked: the grief of Victorian women, the companionship of urban pets, and the changing rituals around death. In a city that often feels polished and monumental, the cemetery is a whisper of private lives and domestic tenderness.

If you go: what to do next

• Respect the site. Look from the public path or join an official Royal Parks tour. Don’t climb fences.

• Bring a camera but be mindful: this is a memorial, not a photo op. Keep shots quiet and considered.

• Stay nearby. If the mood moves you, take a slow walk into Hyde Park itself the Serpentine and the quieter Kensington Gardens paths are nearby and perfect for reflecting.

• Read more. The Royal Parks’ short history page and a few good articles (Atlas Obscura, Historic-UK) make excellent background reading before or after your visit.

A small, final thought

Cities are made of stories, and some of the best are the smallest. Hyde Park’s pet cemetery is a little story about love not grand, but steady and, at times, heartbreakingly human. If you slow your walk and look through the railings, you’ll find a small chorus of names: Tiny, Prince, Rover and a quiet reminder that people have always wanted a place to mark those they loved.

If you’re into hidden corners like this and want more of the city’s gentle secrets, I post small, local guides and quiet discoveries every week.

👉 For real London stories and quick local tips — Follow @london.yaar on Instagram. I’d love to see your photos and reflections from the park.