WOKING'S HERITAGE IN DETAIL
Brookwood Cemetery and The Necroplis Company
To many people, Woking is just another ‘stop’ on their train journey to (or from) London - a typical railway town. But Woking is far from being just another railway town: Woking is unique - Woking is the only town in the world to have been built by a cemetery company!
Original plans for Brookwood cemetery in 1854In the 1840s and 50s, London was facing a serious threat from outbreaks of cholera and other infectious diseases. The population was rapidly expanding and the increased death rate meant that the City’s graveyards and cemeteries were becoming full. In 1848 the Government set up the General Board of Health to look into the situation and in 1850 they introduced the Burials Act - which virtually prohibited all future burials in churchyards in London and proposed the establishment of cemeteries away from the capital. One idea was for a ‘national’ cemetery (serving the whole country) on the vast open heathland of Woking Common. Woking was to become the ‘dead centre’ of England!
Part of Brookwood CemeteryA Company called the ‘London Necropolis and National Mausoleum Company’ who eventually bought 2,268 acres from the Lord of the Manor of Woking - Lord Onslow - for £33,944 took up the idea. To do this, they had to obtain an Act of Parliament to ‘enclose’ the Common and pay compensation to the villagers for their lost ‘common rights’. The Bill to establish the ‘Necropolis’ was not without opposition, and at least one local MP thought that the Necropolis Company was buying too much land for just a cemetery! By the end of the 1854, however, they had bought the land, and laid out 400 acres of it at BROOKWOOD with a branch line linking it via the London & South Western Railway to London.
The Necropolis Company’s land at that time covered virtually the whole of what we now know as MAYBURY, HEATHSIDE, WOKING TOWN CENTRE, HOOK HEATH, ST JOHNS, KNAPHILL and BROOKWOOD, as well as outlying areas of common land, such as Prey Heath and Smarts Heath at MAYFORD and the common at WESTFIELD. But soon the company was looking to sell some of this land - land that only a few months earlier they had insisted they needed for the cemetery. Now it was being described as ‘surplus’ to their requirements!
Postcard of the North Station on the special branch line through the Cemetery
Parliament gave them just ten years to sell their land around the station and at Knaphill. The Act predicted the development of a new town around the station by insisting that five acres be set aside for a church, parsonage and school for the poor. Land sales began almost immediately, but interest was less than hoped for. By 1864 only 343 acres had been sold - raising a total of £31,000. Well over half the land was sold for various institutions at Knaphill and Maybury, with the bulk of sales immediately to the south of the station going to the Rastrick family of Woking Lodge (who bought 41 acres in 1859-60).
Land Sales Map of 1856 showing the Woking Station areaIn 1864 the Necropolis Company asked for a five-year extension to their land sales, but when this expired they still had a large amount of undeveloped land on their hands. In 1869 the Company therefore placed before Parliament their third Bill in 14 years to try to repeal the section forbidding development of any land. The result was that all but 560 acres of the former Woking Common could now be sold - and the development of the new town of Woking could begin in earnest. In 1851 the population of Woking was 2,837, by 1901 it had risen to 16,244 (and that is not including the ‘inhabitants’ of the cemetery) - now it is well over 90,000!
The pages on Early Victorian Development and Woking in the late Victorian and Edwardian Period contain more information about the cemetery and Necropolis Company during those periods.
Booklets.
The Woking Community Play Association’s book ‘Changing Woking - 1900-1929’ contains a wealth of information on the area - including the Cemetery and developments by (or as a result of) the Necropolis Company.
They also feature in the ‘Heritage Notes’ booklets on Westfield, Mayford, Brookwood, Knaphill, St Johns, Hook Heath & Star Hill, Woking Town Centre and Maybury Hill- please see the list of publication on the HERITAGE WALKS page.
