Brookwood Cemetery

Brookwood Cemetery, established by the London Necropolis Company in 1852 near Woking, was the largest cemetery in the world when it opened. London's inner-city graveyards had been overwhelmed by the 1848 cholera epidemic; the solution was a Victorian necropolis 48 kilometres outside the city, reached by a dedicated London Necropolis Railway from Waterloo Station that carried coffins in separate carriages by denomination and social class. Landscape architect William Tite laid out the grounds as a park-like arboretum of giant sequoias, rhododendrons and cedars. Around 240,000 people are buried here, including suffragette Edith Garrud, writer Rebecca West and soldiers from both world wars. Today visitors wander among weathered mausoleums, the Orthodox St Edward Brotherhood shrine and a Commonwealth war graves section.