A nearly 200-year-old architectural proposal for a colossal pyramid cemetery in London, designed to hold millions of deceased individuals, is being reconsidered as the city grapples with an acute shortage of burial space.
According to a recent audit by City Hall, 17 London boroughs are projected to run out of space for new burials by 2040. Three boroughs—Camden, Hackney, and Tower Hamlets—have already reached their capacity. This scarcity is compounded by London's aging population, with the Office for National Statistics predicting that individuals aged 65 and over will constitute over 40 percent of the city's population by 2040.
The Greater London Authority has suggested measures such as re-using graves older than 100 years and increasing grave depths to accommodate multiple burials. Other proposals include utilizing "grey belt" land, which is of lower quality within the green belt.
Amid these contemporary challenges, historians are drawing attention to an audacious plan conceived by architect Thomas Wilson almost two centuries ago during the rapid population growth following the Industrial Revolution. Wilson's vision was to address the overflowing small parish churchyards and the potential health hazards posed by unburied corpses.
Wilson proposed a 94-story pyramid structure in Primrose Hill, north London, designed to stack the dead vertically and create significant capacity. The proposed footprint would cover 18 acres, but the structure was envisioned to offer the practical capacity of over 1,000 acres. Inside, the pyramid would contain 215,219 individual catacomb vaults, capable of holding five million deceased Londoners. Access to these vaults would be facilitated by ramps on each level.
Wilson, tapping into the Victorian fascination with ancient Egypt, envisioned the pyramid adorned in granite and topped with an obelisk, aiming for it to become an iconic landmark. The plan also included a financial incentive; the architect estimated that the Pyramid General Cemetery Company could generate up to £10 million (nearly £150 million in today's money) based on a fee of £5 per vault and 40,000 burials annually.
Wilson described his project as "practical, economical and remunerative," believing it would "go far towards completing the glory of London...teaching the living to die, and the dying to live for ever."
However, Wilson's ambitious idea faced opposition. In 1828, the Literary Gazette dismissed the project as a "monstrous piece of folly," and Parliament ultimately favored the development of more traditional suburban "garden cemeteries" like Highgate and Kensal Green. Wilson's proposal was never realized.
With London's current struggle to find adequate burial space, Wilson's nearly two-century-old pyramid concept is being recalled as a potential, albeit unconventional, solution.