Hither Green Cemetery, opened as Lee Cemetery in 1873, is a large cemetery located on Verdant Lane, London, England. The cemetery is situated between Catford, Hither Green, Grove Park and Lee, located adjacent to a railway line, and close to Grove Park Sidings and Grove Park Nature Reserve. Next to Hither Green Cemetery is Lewisham Crematorium that was opened in 1956. The cemetery was designed by Francis Thorne and included two Gothic chapels – one Anglican, one for dissenters (the Dissenters' Chapel, built by William Webster, was for people belonging to nonconformist, ie: non-Anglican, churches) – and ornamental entrance gates. The original gate lodge was demolished. When the cemetery opened in 1873, it was named Lee Cemetery, although Lee's church and centre are about 1.5 miles (2.5 km) to the north of the cemetery, the land was covered by the Lee civil Parish at the time. The original cemetery occupied what is now the northernmost part of the cemetery, located on a road named Hither Green Lane, but was renamed Verndant Lane later. The cemetery expanded into a much larger southward, into lands previously occupied by the fields of a farm named Shroefield Farm. Particularly notable graves and memorials 1939–1945 War Memorial In the cemetery, there is a memorial to all those who died at their post during World War II, erected in 1951. This is situated next to the Sandhurst Road School memorial. Civilian war graves There is a large terraced area which was built as a memorial to the 38 children and six teachers who died when Sandhurst Road School was bombed on Wednesday 20 January 1943. Next to the memorial for the bombing, there is also a grave of some of the children and a teacher whose families chose to bury their dead together. William Hume Campbell M.A (priest), founder and first principal of St Christopher's College, Blackheath. Military war graves The cemetery contains the graves of 39 Commonwealth service personnel of World War I and 198 from World War II. Those whose graves could not be marked by CWGC headstones are listed on the Screen Wall memorial in the main War Graves plot. Melton Prior Melton Prior (1845–1910), was an English artist and war correspondent[1] for The Illustrated London News from the early 1870s until 1904. Prior was one of the leading illustrators of late Victorian Britain, noted for his ability to quickly sketch scenes. His