Bid to restore English cemetery

Campaigners want the cemetery declared a World Heritage Site

A fundraising campaign has been launched to save The English Cemetery in the Italian city of Florence.

The cemetery's 700 tombs and graves include writers and artists such as Elizabeth Barrett-Browning and Fanny Trollope.

It used to be a major tourist attraction in the 19th century but has since fallen into disrepair.

A London-based firm has started a scheme to raise the £350,000 needed keep the cemetery open all year round.

The last internment was in 1877 after which it became neglected.

Open to visitors

The cemetery, which about 700 tombs and graves, was closed to the general public for over a century until the early part of this decade when it opened for visits by appointment.

The American Dry Cleaning Company's Maida Vale branch has begun the money-raising scheme to mark the area's association with the poet Robert Browning.

Following the death of his poet-wife Elizabeth Barrett-Browning in Florence, Mr Browning returned to London and lived in Maida Vale between 1862 and 1887.

A web petition to get the cemetery to be declared a Unesco World Heritage Site has also been set up.

The company will donate some of its revenues from the Maida Vale branch until 12 December - the anniversary of Robert Browning's death.