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Virginia: Tidewater and Piedmont » Richmond Metropolitan Area » Shockoe Hill Cemetery Environs » Shockoe Hill Cemetery

Shockoe Hill Cemetery

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1825, Richard Young, City Surveyor. Later additions. Hospital St. entrance

In 1825 the Richmond Common Council instructed the city surveyor to plat twelve acres of land for a public cemetery. The cemetery was created in response to overcrowding at St. John's Churchyard and a number of other private cemeteries. Young planned four-plot squares across the site with a network of small paths connecting the plots. When this system of circulation proved inadequate, a large oval avenue was added to connect the different portions of the cemetery. Within Shockoe Hill Cemetery is an outstanding and diverse array of primarily antebellum funerary art and architecture, including sarcophagi, columns, obelisks, figurative sculptures, and headstones. The monuments, many of Neo-Gothic design, are the handiwork of Richmond and northern artists.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Richard Guy Wilson et al.
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Data

What's Nearby

Richmond Alms House
Hebrew Cemetery
St. Luke's Building
Richmond Beneficial Insurance Company Building
Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church

Citation

Richard Guy Wilson et al., "Shockoe Hill Cemetery", [Richmond, Virginia], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/VA-01-RI232.

Print Source

Buildings of Virginia: Tidewater and Piedmont, Richard Guy Wilson and contributors. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002, 237-237.

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