The "Stiffs' Express" heads-up at 7.30pm tonight, 29th January

[salymap]

If you are not tired of trains today, this is a repeat of the programme on the Coffin Train which ran from Waterloo Station, London to Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey.7.30on BBC4.

Sorry about mangled heading

[Nick Armstrong]

Sorry about mangled heading

Allow me, madam.



And thank you for the reminder - yes, it's a segment of one of Porta-Loo's rail-based Odyssey, isn't it? Have just turned it on now, some nice bits about London generally e.g. Burlington Arcade etc... And indeed, the Necropolis Railway

[salymap]

Oh Sir thank you for unscrambling me

I think they cut the bit about Brookwood Cemetery. While staying with a friend in Guildford she took me to see Brookwood. Very atmospheric with old broken tombs and half fallen statues. I had the honour, and I'm not joking, of tidying Tommy Beecham's grave, overgrown with weeds and dead daffodils.Lady B later had him moved to Limpsfield, Surrey, easier to reach for her perhaps.

[Flosshilde]

One of the great picturesque cemeteries, & possibly unique in having its own station. I'd recommend James Stevens Curl's 'A Celebration of Death' to anyone interested in things funerary.

[Frances_iom]

it had two - the ultimate destination was for for CofE 'stiffs' - Catholics etc had to get off prior to this ! - a bit of Necopolis (bombed during war) is I think still there near the long rectangualr office building that re-used the site

[salymap]

I went there in the 1960s and it was very neglected [as a cemetery] then. Is it still in use and, if not, what's going to happen to the valuable site ?

[Flosshilde]

Still a working cemetery - more information here http://www.brookwoodcemetery.com/about_the_cemetery.htm , including a price list, if anyone's interested

[Nick Armstrong]

including a price list, if anyone's interested

[antongould]

I went there in the 1960s and it was very neglected [as a cemetery] then. Is it still in use and, if not, what's going to happen to the valuable site ?

Your grave concerns do you credit Lady Sidcup.

[salymap]

Salymap only answers to her username Lord Tyne&Wear and Surrey is an expensive county and these days history and respect for the departed does not save graveyards/cemeteries from being flattened.It happens in lowly Kent anyway.

[Anna]

The ownership of Brookwood Cemetery has led to a bitter legal dispute, recently resolved by the High Court, details here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/7538172/Lover-of-Britains-biggest-cemetery-owner-wins-share-of-his-28million-fortune-after-legal-battle-with-his-children.html

[salymap]

The ownership of Brookwood Cemetery has led to a bitter legal dispute, recently resolved by the High Court, details here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...-children.html

Thanks Anna, I tnought the site was too valuable to be allowed as it is, or was years ago.