Brompton Cemetery, London

Brompton Cemetery is a lot closer to  central London than Highgate and is situated on a level piece of land in SW London in the borough of Kensington.   To get there I took the Picadilly line to Earl's Court and walked three or four blocks south from the station.

It was established in 1840, and is one of the "magnificent seven" cemeteries of London, when, it was decided that decentralized cemeteries away from churchyards were preferable to the accepted custom before.  Many old churches in the London area have churchyards, even in some situations where the church itself has disappeared, such as the one I saw on Marylebone High Street where the Methodist church was destroyed in bombing during the second world war, but the churchyard remains.

Turn Southeast on Earls Court Road and left on Old Brompton Road to get to the North entrance to the cemetery.


Brompton Cemetery North Entrance from inside the Cemetery

 This cemetery is maintained by Royal Parks but is still a working cemetery.  There was plenty of foot traffic, joggers, and even small children on bicycles passing through.  This is the view from the central pathway.

I bought some sandwiches at a Tesco Express and sat on a park bench inside the entrance.  My breakfast. Afterwards I wandered southward, encountering a military section and the grave of a young mother.

I forgot to record the details of the person interred, but I think she was rather young.  A child on a bicycle stopped by to look at it before cycling on.  If a cemetery is a museum of grief, these are probably the saddest sights, of people who died very young. 

There was a large area of military graves, sectioned off and surrounded by an iron fence.  It contained a lot of graves from soldiers who died young and in action in the first and second world wars, as well as a number of civilians who died in the heavy bombing of London during the war.

Sidney Gilbert Lewis Edwards, of the Grenadier Guards Band died October 9, 1915, at 39.  A little over 2 years later his son, William Edwards, age 19, died October 30, 1917 and was buried in France.  The British certainly paid a heavy price during the two World Wars that America both times belatedly entered.

This illustrates a common method of designing such stones, with lettering attached on the surface, which unfortunately ends up coming off, obliterating whatever the message was.    I haven't seem graves marked this way in America.

George Osborne was 56 when he died, but he was a sergeant in the 2nd batallion of the Coldstream guards, who died in an air raid May 10, 1941. 

Another common sight is a grave that features a stone covered with some kind of stucco, but which unfortunately has not stood the ravages of a little over 150 years very well.

As can be seen here, near the center of the cemetery is an enclosed area just north of the chapel.  Some of the catacombs are located here at the bottom of a staircase.

This is a typical verbose Victorian grave. The first to be interred appears at the top with space for names to be added later on.  For example this one reads:

To

the memory of

LUCY ANNA MARIA

The beloved daughter of

James and Anna Maria Ling:

Who departed this life March 14th 1849

Aged 11 years and 10 months.

Though lost to sight to memory dear.

--------------------

Also of Sarah, daughter of the above

James and Anna Maria and sister to

the above Lucy Anna Maria Ling.

who departed this life April 10th 1851

aged 7 years and 10 months

In life they loved each other

and in death they are not parted.

-------------------

Also of Harriet, sister of the above

who died June 22nd 1854

Aged 5 years and 6 months.

----------------------

Also in loving remembrance of

Anna Maria

The beloved wife of the above

James Ling

who departed this life

February 28th 1878, aged 63 years

A tender wife, a mother dear,

A sincere friend lies sleeping here.

Unfortunately I can't read the last couplet at the bottom of this stone, but you get the idea. It must have

been quite a blow to have buried three young daughters in the space of 5 years.

This next is the grave of someone named Yuri Stepanovich Chyutina.  I know enough Russian to make out some of this but I'll have to also remember something about old Cyrillic, which is somewhat different from the way it is today.  What looks like an "A" here is actually the Russian vowel "Ya", but I don't know what the lower case B with a cross in it could be transliterated as.    This person was probably an exile from the Soviet Union.  My somewhat uncertain translation below:

Holy God,

Holy ?

Holy Immortal,

Remember Us

Yurii Stepanovich Chyutina

born June 1889  died October 1928.

This next one thoughtfully included a translation in English:  Archbishop Nikodem, of Richmond and Great Britain, of the Russian Orthodox Church in Exile.