Oct 6, 2020
Woking Asian Business Forum has been awarded £93,400 from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, for a 2-year project aimed at exploring and documenting minority burial grounds in Brookwood Cemetery.
Unknown to most, Brookwood Cemetery is host to the highest concentration of minority burial grounds in the UK. Apart from a wide range of Muslim burial grounds, these include the first Zoroastrian burial ground established in Europe, as well as Swedish, Latvian and Serbian grounds, to name but a few. These burial grounds constitute an important part of Brookwood Cemetery, and they represent a unique cultural heritage that has so far remained undocumented.
That is what the WABF-led project aims to address. Working with Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey History Centre, Brookwood Cemetery Society and The Lightbox, the project will collect information concerning the history and rituals relating to the burial grounds, and ensure that this information becomes widely available. Accordingly, findings from the project will be available on the website ‘Exploring Surrey’s Past, managed by Surrey History Centre, and an app will be developed, enabling visitors to Brookwood Cemetery to access information about the minority burial ground while visiting the cemetery. Additional outputs include a documentary, an exhibition at The Lightbox, and thematic walks in Brookwood Cemetery, in collaboration with Brookwood Cemetery Society.
Woking Asian Business Forum has been actively supporting local communities since its establishment in 2007, and chairman Shahid Azeem is enthusiastic about this new opportunity for expanding on the ongoing work of the organisation: ‘We are very excited that the National Lottery Heritage Fund has decided to support this important project. Moreover, the project is very timely, as it supplements the ambitious plans for Brookwood Cemetery that Woking Borough Council has put forward recently’.
Commencing in September, the project will be managed by Woking-based social researcher Ole Jensen, working with local stakeholders and volunteers. More details about the project can be found at the website of Woking Asian Business Forum, http://www.wabf.org.uk/.
Sep 17, 2020
Relocations follow long history of London reburials at Brookwood cemetery
HS2 Ltd, working with the Archbishops’ Council of the Church of England, have agreed with Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey for reburials as a result of excavations at St James’s Gardens to take place there.
In October 2018, HS2 archaeologists began the excavation of one of London’s 18th and 19th century burial grounds, to the west of Euston station in St James’s Gardens. The disused cemetery is required for the construction of the UK’s new high speed railway line High Speed Two and the new London HS2 station. The site was home to over 50,000 of London’s deceased.
Brookwood Cemetery was conceived in 1849 by the London Necropolis Company to house London’s deceased at a time when the capital was unable to accommodate increasing numbers.
Brookwood was connected to the capital by a special railway branch line, and the capital’s dead were taken there by hearse train carriages. Initially there were two stations at the cemetery – the northern one serving the non-conformist side of the cemetery and the southern the Anglican side.
It is not unusual for the populations London’s burial grounds to be relocated, and Brookwood Cemetery has reburied London’s deceased for over 150 years. The first major reburials took place in 1862 when the construction of Charing Cross Railway station and the routes into it required the burial ground at Cures College in Southwark to be demolished. London’s Euston station was extended westwards in the 1940s and some of the occupants of St James’s Gardens required reburial. Those remains were rehomed at Brookwood so this agreement to rebury the remaining occupants of St James’s Gardens there means that the buried population will remain together.
Helen Wass, HS2 Ltd’s Head of Heritage said:
“Throughout our archaeology programme and the excavation of burial grounds, we have treated the buried population with due dignity, care and respect. The final destination for the human remains excavated from St James’s Gardens is fitting, as they will be reunited with the previously relocated burials, moved over 70 years ago.
“HS2’s unprecedented archaeology work between London and the West Midlands has been a once in a lifetime opportunity to tell the story of our past, create opportunities in the present and leave a lasting legacy for generations to come.”
Cllr Graham Cundy, Woking Borough Council’s Lead Member for Brookwood Cemetery, said:
“Established mid-19 century on heathland acquired from Lord Onslow, Brookwood Cemetery is one of the largest burial sites in the country. A new grassland plot on the south side of the cemetery has been prepared where Brookwood will once again accommodate those displaced by the Capital’s expansion.
“Although you can no longer arrive at Brookwood via the London Necropolis Railway, you can access the cemetery directly from Brookwood mainline train station. The 500 acre site is a Grade I listed park and the grounds are open daily to visitors who want to explore the cemetery’s historic ties to London.”
A team of over 200 archaeologists and related specialists undertook the careful archaeological work, in advance of construction. They have already discovered much about the lives and deaths of ordinary Londoners’ as well as uncover the remains of notable people including explorers, soldiers, artists and musicians. Further analysis of a proportion of the human remains will tell us more about the individuals who inhabited London at this exciting time in its history.
All the human remains are to be reburied in consecrated ground, as per HS2 Ltd’s commitment to the Archbishops’ Council of the Church of England.
It was announced in October 2019 that the remains of one of St James’s Gardens population, Captain Matthew Flinders, the British explorer who first circumnavigated Australia and gave the country its name, will be buried in his home village of Donington, Lincolnshire. This follows a request made by the descendants of the Flinders family and the local community for his remains to be returned to the village where he grew up.
The fascinating story of London’s past uncovered through the excavations at St James’s Gardens is currently being showcased in a BBC documentary series, HS2 – The Biggest Dig. The three part series continues on Tuesday 22nd September on BBC Two and is available on BBC iPlayer.
Sep 3, 2020
Woking Borough Council has approved plans that will support the ongoing conservation of Brookwood Cemetery and encourage visitors to explore this globally significant heritage site.
The Masterplan and Experience Plan approved at Full Council (30 July 2020) set out a number of broad policies by which the site will be managed and developed in the future. They support a vision of a sustainable working cemetery leading the way in heritage conservation which other sites will look to.
The plans focus on enhancing the cemetery’s unique characteristics such as the railway line that serviced the cemetery up until its London terminus was bombed during the Blitz; the substantial collection of Giant Redwoods thought to be the earliest and grandest in the country; and the cemetery’s historic ‘Ring’ with its high quality Victorian monuments, many of which are Grade I listed.
New visitor facilities including a café, walking trail, education centre and the provocatively titled, ‘Museum of Death’ are among the plans to attract new audiences and promote greater use of this largely hidden public asset.
Ensuring the experience of visiting Brookwood remains that of visiting a cemetery, new information points and zoning will make the site’s historical and ecological landscapes easier to navigate and explore.
Cllr Graham Cundy, Woking Borough Council’s Lead Member for Brookwood Cemetery, said:
“We now have a set of plans that will help us take the cemetery forward over the next ten to twenty years. “First and foremost, the cemetery’s main function is, and always will be, to provide a dignified and respectful resting place for Woking’s deceased, of all faiths and none. As stated in the Masterplan, all future development must sustain and support this objective.
“The Experience Plan is a much about inspiring residents to explore and appreciate the cemetery as it is about attracting new audiences from further afield. An expanded programme of events, tours, exhibitions and workshops will bring to life the themes and cultural wonders within the cemetery, while highlighting the different aspects that make Brookwood a heritage site with immense local, national and global significance.”
Brookwood Cemetery was founded mid-nineteenth century after a cholera epidemic (1848-49) exacerbated the problem of overcrowding across London’s cemeteries. Built by the London Necropolis and National Mausoleum Company (LNNMC) on 2,268 acres of heathland purchased from Lord Onslow, Brookwood was reputed to be the largest cemetery in Europe and the pinnacle of Victorian garden cemetery design.
Cllr Ayesha Azad, Woking Borough Council’s Portfolio Holder for Asset Management, said:
“The Council acquired Brookwood Cemetery for the people of Woking. Over time the site has become dissected and lost from public view both physically and metaphorically. We intend to change that and detailed within the plans is a cemetery that is seen as community asset, which supports both physical and emotional wellbeing and provides opportunities for learning and shared cultural experiences.
