Here’s looking at London’s Necropolis Railway

• In 1854, the London Necropolis & National Mausoleum Company tried to gain a monopoly on London’s burial industry by opening a railway line connecting central London and Brookwood Cemetery, a graveyard in Surrey that was, at one time, the largest in the world

• The trains utilised existing tracks belonging to the London and South Western Railway. When they arrived at the graveyard, the carriages were shunted down a dedicated line into one of two stations—one for Anglicans and one for non-conformists. The train compartments and station waiting rooms were also partitioned by both religion and class

• Although the graveyard and railway line were built in response to London’s burial crisis—limited space meant that the oldest graves were regularly exhumed to make room for new bodies—the London Necropolis Railway was not a success. Between the opening date and 1941, an average of 2,300 burials took place every year, against an anticipated 10,000–50,000

• The London terminus was badly damaged in April 1941 and trains ceased to run. The building was sold off for office space, although the original façade (left) on Westminster Bridge Road remains