The Angels of Kensal Green
Date: 10:30 15th August 2026
“To Her”: Women in Cemetery Angels
A talk by Emma Liggins
The talk explores “beloved wives” and “beloved daughters” through the striking figure of the stone angel, revealing how commemoration of women both echoed and complicated the Victorian ‘celebration of death’. Through evocative epitaphs and richly symbolic sculpture, we’ll journey across some of Britain’s most remarkable memorial landscapes: London’s Highgate and Kensal Green cemeteries and Southern Cemetery in Manchester. Even after the First World War, the angel remained a familiar presence in remembrance, linked not only to mourning but also to cultural figures such as the “Angel in the House,” the fairy and the ghostly Angel of Mons. Whether envisioned as a celestial guardian or a grieving figure draped across a tomb, the cemetery angel remains one of the most powerful symbols of love and loss in funerary art. Join us to uncover the stories, symbolism and secrets behind these hauntingly beautiful monuments.
Dr Emma Liggins is a Reader in English at Manchester Metropolitan University and Co-Director of the Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies. She has published on women's ghost stories and Gothic fiction, and has a chapter on Neo-Edwardian Gothic in the recent collection Graveyard Gothic (2024). She is currently researching graveyards, memorials and ghost stories for her new book Victorian and Edwardian Death Spaces: Gender and Memorialisation, due out in 2027.
The Angels of Kensal Green
Guided Tour Led by Irina Porter
Continue the journey from talk to tomb on this guided walk through Kensal Green Cemetery, exploring the meaning and symbolism of its spectacular angels. You will encounter these powerful figures up close while uncovering the stories, beliefs and artistic traditions they embody. We will look at angels through literature, history, theology and art, to discover why they became such powerful symbols of comfort, protection and the hope of resurrection. The remarkable angels of Kensal Green will show us how their styles and meanings evolved from Gothic to the present day. Come and meet them for yourself!
Irina Porter is a London Blue Badge tour guide and historian with special interest in cemeteries. She is a Tour Guide and Trustee of the Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery, volunteer tour guide at Willesden Jewish Cemetery and Chair and Journal Editor of Willesden Local History Society.
The event will start at the Dissenters' Chapel. Lunch is included
Advance booking essential.
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