A Critical Site Report on Recreational Landscapes: Wrexham Cemetery As a Leisure Space

Opened and consecrated in 1876, Wrexham Cemetery is an example of Victorian attitudes towards space, memorialisation and moral re-creation. Designed using the romanticised Grecian image of progression and reflecting the establishment of botany as a science, these new spaces were intended
 to replace the reality of the body's decomposition and encourage appropriate use of free time for physical activity. Florist Yeaman Strachan – borough surveyor and councillor – was chosen to design this new space. Using the work of botanist John Claudius Loudon, Strachan's selections
 of trees and shrubbery acted as memento mori, reminders of the beauty of the resurrection, led by a Victorian desire for affluence and respectability even in death.