Brookwood and the Railway Cemeteries

Brookwood Cemetery is the largest cemetery in the western hemisphere.  From the walled-off mini-cemeteries of City Churches to leaf-littered  prairies containing the anonymous dead: Brookwood is the closest thing  we have today to a Victorian cemetery as it was meant to be.

Landscaped  by pedigree men, including a gardener who would go on to implement  designs in Sandringham and of whom Edward VII would describe as "a  gentleman not to be described as inexpensive", Brookwood's beauty  achieved what many of the suburban cemeteries could not - it could  maintain its park like elegance against the threat of urban sprawl but  still be close enough to London via its deathly railway service from  London Waterloo.

In this talk Sheldon will explore the founding  men and the garden designs that influenced the aesthetic of the cemetery  and how these influence the ongoing restoration of the cemetery today,  from the creation of a wetland area and returning long forgotten parts  of the cemetery back into public use, as well as other cemeteries with  railway links and their own landscaping.