The name says it all: The British Cemetery. 200 years ago, this plot of land was used exclusively by the English. In 1811, a British community in Brazil received permission to construct a cemetery and an Anglican church. The space lies just a few meters from the Cemetery of the New Blacks, an archeological site which contains what remains of an ancient slave cemetery. Far different from the open and inviting atmosphere of the Cemitério dos Ingleses, the bodies of dead slaves were buried in common graves.
Indeed, the Cemitério dos Ingleses consists of 4 thousand meters of land and abundant vegetation. The greenery, which remains from the time of the cemetery’s construction, includes beautiful mango trees which are there to provide shade and to help cool visitors. The Porto Maravilha site from the Rio de Janeiro State Government even points out that “to maintain the cemetery clean and well cared-for, there are four employees” who work on site.
Preserved by the State Institute of Cultural Heritage (IEPC), the space is famous for being the first open air cemetery in Brazil. Despite this, the space includes few tombs with inscriptions in Portuguese. Only in the 1980s did the cemetery begin to accept the deceased of any nationality.