A tour of the beautiful English Cemetery in Málaga, the oldest in the Iberian Peninsula

@ElentirENG ES 7·26·2023 · 23:34 0

Historically, in Spain, cemeteries were consecrated to the Catholic religion, so only the baptized were buried in them.

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This was a problem for members of other religious denominations, as they had no burial places for themselves. To solve this problem, the then British consul in Malaga, William Mark , appointed in 1824, set out to find a place so that his compatriots would have their own burial place.

In 1829 the Malaga authorities ceded land for the construction of an English Cemetery, which was built two years later, and which corresponds to the oldest enclosure of the current cemetery. His first buried was George Stephens, owner of the brig "Cicero", who drowned in Malaga in January 1831, according to the cemetery website. It was the first English cemetery and the first Protestant cemetery in the Iberian Peninsula, and the first Anglican church in Spain, the Church of San Jorge, was built in its grounds in 1891, which is still in use today to do religious services.

In addition to British citizens, this cemetery ended up sheltering other people of the Protestant religion of other nationalities, among them the 41 sailors who died in the shipwreck of the German frigate SMS Gneisenau, sunk in Malaga due to a temporary on December 16, 1900. The bodies of four allied soldiers from World War II are also buried there, whose bodies were recovered on the coast of Malaga.

The English Cemetery in Malaga was administered by the British consuls in the city for 175 years. The British government financed it with funds that it withdrew in 1903. After many years of decline and neglect, a foundation ended up taking over the cemetery, being the entity that currently manages it. You can find more information on the cemetery website.

The always interesting YouTube channel Aventuras Entresierras has published a video on the that runs through this cemetery, as well as telling the story of some of its inhabitants, including one that is very special to the author of the video (the video is in Spanish, you can activate the automatic subtitles in English in the bottom bar of the player):

You can see here some captures of the video. Here we see one of the lions that presides over the entrance to the cemetery. The lion is one of the heraldic elements of the coat of arms of the United Kingdom.

The central part of the cemetery. In the background we can see the Anglican Church of St. George.

The cemetery has really beautiful tombs, in a typical romantic style. In the video you can see them in more detail.

Here we see the original cemetery enclosure. The video shows the curious appearance of their graves.