Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park is a local nature reserve and historic cemetery in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets within the East End of London. It is regarded as one of the seven great cemeteries of the Victorian era (now known as the "Magnificent Seven"). The cemetery opened in 1841 and closed for burials in 1966. The cemetery park today encompasses the original cemetery, bounded by historic walls, and additional pockets of land including "Scrapyard Meadow" and the Ackroyd Drive Greenlink. It was originally named The City of London and Tower Hamlets Cemetery but was called Bow Cemetery by locals. The cemetery pre-dates the creation of the modern Borough of Tower Hamlets in 1965, and instead takes its name from the original, older and somewhat larger, Tower Hamlets (or Tower division) – from which the modern borough also takes its name. The historic parish boundary which defines the Mile End and Bromley-by-Bow areas runs north to south through the park, with Mile End to the west and Bromley-by-Bow to the east. Location The Main Gate is on Southern Grove (on the crossing with Hamlets Way). There are also small gates on Hamlet Way and Cantrell Road. The nearest tube stations are Mile End and Bow Road. The site is managed by the Friends of Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park, a registered charity in the UK founded in 1990. The Friends are headquartered at the Soanes Centre within the Park. History Before the Victorian era, all of London's dead were buried in small urban churchyards, which were so overcrowded and so close to where people lived, worked, and worshipped that they were causing disease and ground water contamination. An Act of Parliament was passed which allowed joint-stock companies to purchase land and set up large cemeteries outside the boundaries of the City of London. There were seven great cemeteries (the "Magnificent Seven") laid out about the same time (1832–41). Highgate Cemetery is the most well known; the others are Nunhead, West Norwood, Kensal Green, Brompton, Abney Park. The City of London and Tower Hamlets Cemetery Company was made up of eleven wealthy directors whose occupations reflected the industries of the day: corn merchant, merchant ship broker and ship owner, timber merchant, and Lord Mayor of the City of London. The company bought of land and the cemetery was divided into a consecrated part for Anglican burials and an unconsecrated part for all