Cemeteries in 1900 London: Brompton Cemetery

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Arthur H. Beavan found this to say about Brompton Cemetery at the turn of the twentieth century in Imperial London, first published in 1901:

Brompton Cemetery was consecrated in 1841, as the Westminster and West London Burial-Ground. It was originally a nursery-garden, and the choicest trees and shrubs having been spared, it is more umbrageous than any other cemetery, except those of Highgate and Finchley.

Its site is perfectly level, and it is laid out symmetrically, with a fine double avenue of limes, etc, running north and south, the entrance being at each end, viz. Fulham Road, and Richmond Road, Earl's Court.

Its chapel is domed, and branching right and left are colonnades of somewhat imposing design, beneath which are the catacombs, wherein on slabs, on each side of the narrow passage, repose the sealed-up dead.

The sight, as seen through the heavy grated doors leading into this chamber, is sufficiently gloomy and depressing, though by no means offensive.

Little mortuary chapels, or oratories, above the graves, abound at Brompton; and in the circular space formed by the colonnades, the Campo Santo of the cemetery, there is a forest of crosses of every possible variety, and there are two remarkable monuments; one to the memory of Sir Augustus Harris; and another, a full-sized marble statue of a Marchesa, in Roman costume, standing upright on the gravestone and protected from the weather by a glass case.

The terrace, on the eastern side, famous for its thickly-growing ivy, is another favourite spot for "important" interments, and contains some good examples of monumental masonry.

Many distinguished soldiers are buried at Brompton.

In 1900 the most recent military funeral was that of Field-Marshal Sir Donald Stewart, Governor of Chelsea Hospital, from which place many an old pensioner is borne hither, and with military honours laid to rest, amidst a crowd of sympathetic sightseers.

In this cemetery lie buried T. P. Cooke, Benjamin Webster, Robert Keeley, William Terriss and his wife; Adelaide Neilson, the "gifted and beautiful," whose sudden death in Paris took place August 15, 1880; the energetic Sir Augustus Harris, whose epitaph is, appropriately, "At Rest"; Lady Martin (Helen Faucit) and many other celebrated actors and actresses.

Here, too, lie the remains of Sir Roderick Murchison, and a great concourse of people notable in various ways.

Though thrushes and blackbirds sing in its thick bushes, by 1900 Brompton Cemetery was no longer a rural, or even a quiet, place; the noise of road traffic, the roar of voices from the adjoining "running-ground" when sports or matches are on, and the incessant rush of trains on the railway skirting its eastern boundary, have completely changed its character.

Next: London's Cemeteries in 1900: Highgate Cemetery