other denominations. Tower Hamlets Cemetery was formally consecrated by the Bishop of London Charles James Blomfield on Saturday 4 September 1841 prior to being opened for burials. The cemetery was consecrated in the morning; the first burial took place in the afternoon. Tower Hamlets Cemetery was very popular with people from the East End and by 1889 247,000 bodies had been interred; the cemetery remained open for another 77 years. In the first two years 60% of the burials were in public graves and by 1851 this had increased to 80%. Public graves were the property of the company and were used to bury those whose families could not afford to buy a plot. Several persons, entirely unrelated to each other, could be buried in the same grave within the space of a few weeks. Allegedly some graves were dug 40 feet deep and contained up to 30 bodies. The cemetery itself did not remain in a tidy and elegant state for long. Only 55 years after it was opened it was reported to be in a neglected state. During the Second World War the cemetery was bombed five times during raids on the City of London; both cemetery chapels were damaged and shrapnel damage can be seen on the graves by the 1994 Soanes Centre in the north-west corner of the park. Burials continued taking place until 1966, when the Greater London Council (G.L.C.) bought the company for £100,000 under the G.L.C.(General Powers) Act and the ground was closed for burials. The intention was to create an open space for the public and relevant parts of the cemetery were freed from the effects of consecration. In October 1967 a further £125,000 was spent clearing the chapels and of graves. Strong local opposition and problems of funding stopped the clearance. Today Tower Hamlets London Borough Council took over the ownership of the park in 1986. It was declared a Local Nature Reserve in May 2000 along with adjacent open land on Cantrell Road and Ackroyd Drive. It has also been designated as Site of Metropolitan Importance for Nature Conservation and a Conservation area. The high brick walls which surround it are on the national register of listed buildings as are seven individual memorials (all Grade II). The Friends of Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park is an independent charity established in 1990 because there were concerns over the increasing neglect by successive