Talk:Brookwood Cemetery

Largest?

"By 1854 it was the largest cemetery in the world" Is it still the largest? Theresa knott 08:50 20 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I can't find any reference to it ever having been the largest - that seems to be the A'ali Burial Mounds in Bahrain. Anyone? Nathaniel Cross 23 Jun 2003

The "Brookwood Cemetery Society" homepage and literature says it "was the largest in the world" - Lsmithgo 00:04, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Brookwood Cemetery is very hard to define as it is a cemetery which contains a number of individual cemeteries. The total surface area is between 450 and 2.000 acres (depending on definition and which period in time). The problem with the A'ali burial mounds is that a lot of buildings (not being part of the "cemetery") have been built around them, forming A'ali village. Brookwood is probably the largest cemetery in the world, in the regular sense of the word. It is difficult to say what the largest burial ground is. Arlington National Cemetery, a military cemetery, at around 625 acres, could be considered larger, but this depends on definition. Strictly speaking, if you look at area, Ohlsdorf Cemetery in Hamburg, Germany is the biggest civilian cemetery, as it is nearly a 1.000 acres in surface area. If you look at the number buried (although not necessarily a cemetery), the area around Najaf in Iraq is probably the largest, with more than five million reputed to have been buried there. It is where Shiites want to be buried because it is seen as the holiest ground in the world. In the Western World, the Nazi extermination camps were probably the largest in number of deaths. Auschwitz (strictly speaking Auschwitz II-Birkenau) is reputed to have been the place where between 1.1 and 3 million found their death. --JHvW (talk) 14:03, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Southern Cemetery, Manchester page claim it to be the biggest. Can someone settle this? We seem to have contradictory information on the articles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pawlit (talk • contribs) 22:30, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

This is not exactly true. It is claimed that Southern Cemetery in Manchester is the second largest is in the United Kingdom. As it is very hard to find exact details about the surface area or number of interments this might be correct. London City Cemetery and Crematorium seems to be a strong contender for second spot. IMHO Brookwood is much larger in total surface area. Why is ranking so important? JHvW 19:47, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Southern Cemetery's original claim was that it was the largest municipal cemetery in the UK, having been laid out and opened by the Manchester City Council. However this distinction was lost when Brookwood Cemetery was bought by Woking Council in 2014.Cloptonson (talk) 10:53, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Murderers commemorated

Minor factoid that might be included in an expanded article is the inclusion of executed murderers on the memorials:

"L/27572 Private August Sangret, Royal Canadian Infantry Corps, is commemorated on the Brookwood Memorial. His entry can be found on Panel 23, Column 3. Other executed criminals present on the Brookwood Memorial are Ernest James Kemp and Theodore Schurch." ("The Wigwam Case". British Military & Criminal History in the period 1900 to 1999. Retrieved 2006-10-28.) --Gaius Cornelius 16:52, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

There is a mention of Edith Thompson, who was reputed to have conspired to murder her husband Percy, she was found guilty of adultery. She was executed in HMP Holloway by hanging on January 9, 1923. She was interred in the prison until her remains and the remains of three others (Styllou Christofi, Amelia Sach and Annie Walters) were reinterred in Brookwood in 1971, until 1993 the grave was unmarked. In 1993 a memorial was placed, the memorial is clearly marked Edith Thompson and is in plot 117. --JHvW (talk) 16:09, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

BTW, Schurch was not hanged for murder but treachery in having deserted while a POW and later spied for Germany and Fascist Italy. There is also listed on the memorial another Canadian soldier who was executed for the 1945 murder of a woman in Bridgend, Wales, the crime of which took place in proximity of time and place to the German POW mass escape from Island Farm camp but his name escapes my memory of the story.Cloptonson (talk) 11:40, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

External links modified

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500 acres

@ThunderingTyphoons!: The figure of 500 acres probably came from page 4 of the brochure of the London Necropolis Company (LNC), reproduced in Clarke, John M. (1995) [1983]. The Brookwood Necropolis Railway. Locomotion Papers (3rd ed.). Headington: Oakwood Press. p. 58. ISBN 0-85361-471-7. LP143. It consists of 500 acres of beautifully-wooded land but on p. 29 of the same book we find that the LNC purchased over 2,000 acres of Surrey heathland ... about 400 acres, south of the L&SWR's main line, was set aside as the initial site of the London Necropolis. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 15:54, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

@Redrose64: I see, thanks for that. Both the cemetery website and the Woking BC source I provided say 220 acres. While it's not exactly clear whether that includes the CWGC site as well, the latter source does state that a lot of untouched cemetery land was sold off in the 1960s. Even now, there are many plots that are anything but crowded.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 17:42, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Garbled paragraph (section History, subsection Necropolis Railway)

It was the cholera epidemic of 1848 that led two industrialists to develop this high burial site. It was at first a controversial project. The Bishop of London condemned the "offensive" despatch of first-, second- and third-class corpses in the same carriages, so this had to be modified.

Having checked against the article on the London Necropolis Company, I find this paragraph chronologically inaccurate. Bishop Blomfield made his comments in 1842 (predating the establishment of the LNC) not about the yet to be built Brookwood Cemetery but about the use of railway carriages for funerals, the modifications were to be arrangement of the carriages not to the cemetery (which this paragraph could be implying) and that Blomfield supported the legislation to erect the cemetery which came later than 1848. The instigators of the LNC scheme, Richard Broun and Richard Sprye, are not identified in the article explicitly as industrialists (if one interprets the word as being directors of industrial companies or master manufacturers). I have anyway put a citation need tag against the paragraph.Cloptonson (talk) 13:33, 24 June 2025 (UTC)

New Commonwealth War Graves Commission UK 1914-1918 Memorial (section Brookwood Military Cemetery)

I draw attention that a new, third version of this memorial was unveiled earlier this month, in form of 31 stelae with room to inscribe names. This supersedes the previous two versions. See here link to this page from CWGC's website: https://www.cwgc.org/our-work/news/hrh-the-princess-royal-inaugurates-new-brookwood-1914-1918-memorial/ I leave this here to give others opportunity to use the information.Cloptonson (talk) 14:30, 19 June 2026 (UTC)