Brookwood Cemetery

pic by Ron Strutt

A post over at Sharkbytes' My Quality Day' has inspired this one. It reminded me of  the largest cemetery in England which I pass in the train on the way to London. Some of my friends have done the guided tour and I have long wanted to make a visit myself.

I'm not sure what the attraction is of cemeteries. Perhaps it's just their tranquil nature. Sometimes people just want to visit the last resting place of someone famous or just known to the visitor. I just feel drawn to this place for its history and the intriguing way it looks.

I found it has a wikipaedia page which tells me it was opened mid 19th century to take the London overflow. It also mentions how spacious and uncluttered the grave sites are, and that it was landscaped and planted to make it attractive, with for example, large avenues of tall sequoia trees and various luxurious shrubs.

Half of the Necropolis was designated for those with non-Anglican religions, including Jews. It was considered so important that it had its own railway line built - the London Necropolis Railway - with a stop in each of the different halves of the grave yard. The designated railway is long gone but you can still reach the cemetery via a stop on the main line. The cemetery has developed significantly over the years and part of it was taken over by the military to accommodate war graves in the 20th century.