The presence of George Loddiges, nurseryman and scientist, on the garden cemetery's design team, may account for Hosking's final choice of the Sacred Lotus flower for the decorative motifs at the tops of the Abney Park entrance pylons; a plant closely associated with the River Nile and Egyptian religious symbolism.

Importantly, Mount Auburn Cemetery, from which Abney Park's client representative, George Collison took much of his inspiration, still at that time had only a temporary Egyptial Revival structure (made of dusted wood and sand).

George Shillibeer's invention was arousing some debate in 1843, as had the Newington Academy for Girls in its day (for which he had designed the world's first school bus), and now the new nondenominational park cemetery.

By contrast, Abney Park's approach resonated perfectly with those who had close ties with America, principally Congregationalists and other nonconformist groups whose relatives had left for the New World to pursue political and religious freedom.

For them, the proposed Egyptian Revival design symbolised the adoption of an architectural tradition from part of the African continent with an association with Great Pyramids and reflected the pioneering spirit embodied in Massachusetts' Mount Auburn Cemetery.

He envisaged the building of a brick and granite pyramid taller than St. Paul's Cathedral containing nearly a quarter of a million catacombs, on nearly a hundred levels, surmounting Primrose Hill, complete with a public observatory at the top.