Ilford Animal Cemetery

Ilford Animal Cemetery is an animal cemetery in Ilford in London, England, United Kingdom that contains over three thousand burials.[1] It was founded in the 1920s and is operated by the People's Dispensary for Sick Animals.[2] The cemetery was closed to new burials in the 1960s and gradually became neglected and overgrown before a £50,000 grant from the National Lottery led to its reopening.

The grave of Able Seacat Simon

Activities

The burials are a mixture of family pets and military animals,[3] including thirteen recipients of the Dickin Medal for bravery (a fifth of all Dickin Medal recipients are buried at Ilford).[1] The first Dickin Medal recipient to be buried at Ilford was Rip, a Second World War search and rescue dog. Information boards recounting the stories of several of the animals were constructed during the recent restoration.[3]

The cemetery has an area specifically dedicated to bird burials.[4] It also has a Pet Tribute Garden designed by celebrity gardener Bob Flowerdew.[2] The inspiration for the design was the Dickin Medal, which has stripes of brown, blue and green representing sea, land and air forces.[5]

British pet massacre

At the beginning of World War II over 750,000 pets were killed in Britain due to fears of food shortages. As many as 500,000 were buried in a meadow that became part of the animal cemetery.[6]

Reopening

In the early twenty-first century it was restored with the assistance of a £50,000 grant from the National Lottery.[1] Headstones were repaired[3] or replaced,[2] the entrance gate was repaired, the graves were numbered and a visitor's map was created.[3] The cemetery re-opened in 2007 with a ceremony that included a performance of the Last Post by a bugler from the King's Royal Rifle Corps[7] and a pigeon fly-past (although the birds actually took fright at the assembled crowd and flew in the opposite direction).[1] It was attended by two holders of the PDSA Gold Medal, Jake (an explosives detection dog)[1][8] and Endal (an assistance dog). Also present was Commander Stuart Hett, who had been an officer aboard HMS Amethyst and had been tasked with responding to the many letters received by the ship's heroic cat, Simon, who is buried at Ilford.[1]

Endal

The garden includes a pet tribute tag dedicated to Endal, the assistance dog which was present at the re-opening ceremony but which died in 2009.[9] The cemetery is behind the PDSA on Woodford Bridge Road, Redbridge, Ilford, Essex.

Dickin Medal interments
The grave of Crumstone Irma

Dickin Medal recipients buried at Ilford include:

References
  1. Maev Kennedy (14 December 2007). "Pet heroes honoured as cemetery reopens". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 February 2011.
  2. "Ilford Animal Cemetery". PDSA. Archived from the original on 9 September 2010. Retrieved 25 February 2011.
  3. "Last resting place of 'hero pets'". BBC News. 13 December 2007. Retrieved 25 February 2011.
  4. Justine Hankins (23 October 2004). "A death in the family". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 February 2011.
  5. "Celebrity to open animal Garden of Remembrance". PDSA. Archived from the original on 18 July 2011. Retrieved 7 March 2011.
  6. Carter, Marie (13 November 2017). "Remembering the British 'pet holocaust' of World War Two". The Independent. Retrieved 29 December 2020.
  7. Ilford Animal Cemetery Ilford, England
  8. Gold medals for 7/7 sniffer dogs
  9. "Heroic dog honoured". Wanstead and Woodford Guardian. 2 September 2009. Retrieved 25 February 2011.
  10. "Burial of a dog hero". The Mail. Adelaide: National Library of Australia. 17 July 1954. p. 52. Retrieved 7 November 2012.
  11. The Dickin Medal awarded to Ricky is kept in the Museum van de Kanselarij der Nederlandse Orden, Apeldoorn, The Netherlands

51°35′15″N 0°2′45″E

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