Wolvercote Cemetery

Wolvercote Cemetery stands on the northern edge of Oxford, beside Banbury Road. It opened in 1889 and now holds more than fifteen thousand graves. A funeral chapel and public toilets sit near the main entrance, with a smaller side gate in Five Mile Drive. The cemetery won Cemetery of the Year plaques in 1999 and 2001. It is divided into sections for different faiths and groups, including Baháʼí, Muslim, Jewish, Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox and Polish Roman Catholic. There are also areas for cremated remains, green burials and infant burials. The cemetery is worth visiting for its long list of notable interments. Among them are Sir Roger Bannister, the first runner to complete a sub-four-minute mile, and J. R. R. Tolkien, buried with his wife Edith under their chosen names Beren and Lúthien. Other graves belong to philosopher Isaiah Berlin, social psychologist Michael Argyle, Egyptologist Jaroslav Černý and spy Daphne Park. The Tolkiens lie in the Roman Catholic section, while economist Adam Koc and Orthodox bishop Kallistos Ware rest elsewhere. Visitors walk past orderly rows of headstones and mature trees. The Jewish section dates from 1894, with an extension added in 2000. A separate area remembers forty-four Commonwealth service personnel from the two world wars. The graves of cremated remains are marked by simple plaques set into grass, and the green burial ground blends quietly with the surrounding landscape.