Trifter

During the late-Victorian era, and the early 20th century, there existed in London one particular railway line that the capital’s inhabitants had no desire whatsoever to travel on. Their reluctance was not based on the railway’s lack of comfort or amenities, or the cost of making a journey; it was in fact because the London Necropolis Railway carried the “recently departed” of London to their final resting place!

The LNR was the brainchild of Sir Richard Broun in response to London’s overcrowding of its cemeteries, where graves were being used over and over again for fresh internments. In many cases the bones of the previous burials were being left scattered about at ground level, or sold to local bone mills to be ground up for use as fertilizer. The decomposing bodies also posed a dangerous health risk, should rotting material contaminate adjacent water springs.

An appropriate site was needed by the LNR far enough away from London where no such risk would manifest itself. Eventually an area of Woking Common comprising of 2,000 acres, known now as Brookwood in Surrey, twenty-five miles from London, was purchased and construction work began.

Two stations, North and South, were built on the new site in 1854 – one for the Conformist burials on the south side, and another for the non-Conformists to the north. In October of the same year, the building of the LNR’s York Street railway terminus in central London was built.

On the 13th November 1854, the first funeral train on a unique railway line dedicated to that sole purpose left York Street heading for Brookwood.

However, the new line was not without its initial setbacks. Due to unforeseen railway traffic congestion, it quickly became apparent that the York Street terminus would prove inadequate for the task in hand, so a new one was built behind the mainline station of Waterloo; partly funded by the London & South Western Railway who saw an opportunity to increase their profits by way of a partnership with the LNR.

The newly-built station annexe housed two mortuaries, waiting rooms for the various classes of patrons where a glass screen was erected so that first class parties did not have to look at those in the third class; workshops for a variety of trades and all the other facilities needed to run a station.

The new LNR station opened in 1902.

The funeral trains had accommodation for 1st, 2nd and 3rd class passengers in its coaches, as did the custom-built hearse cars themselves. Each hearse was divided into three sections – for the different “classes”, each containing four cells containing one coffin each.  The benefit of a coffin travelling in a first class hearse was that it had more elaborate scroll decoration on the doors! Plus, the coffin was treated with a lot more care at either end of the journey, which probably explains why third class mourners were not allowed to witness the loading and unloading of their own particular coffin.

The First Class fare from Waterloostation to the Brookwood cemetery in 1903 was six shillings (30p) for accompanying mourners, and £1.00 for coffins.

The Third Class fare was two shillings (10p) for mourners, and two shillings and sixpence (12.5p) for coffins.

On the face of it, as the 19th turned to the 20th century, it seemed that the London Necropolis Railway was heading for a decent long-term profit, from what was virtually a monopoly. Unfortunately, other forces were at work against them.

As the LNR worked to increase its business over a twenty-year period, elsewhere in London thirty-two new cemeteries had been opened, seriously undermining the potential of the LNR.

In the intervening years between 1854 and 1874 Brookwood received only around 3,000 burials a year, a figure that fell well short of the company’s expectations.

The steady decline of the London Necropolis Railway began to have a marked effect from October 1900 onwards, when it cancelled all of its Sunday services, and by 1930 the writing was clearly on the wall – it was reduced to operating only one or two funeral trains a week!

However, it was not the lack of trade that put the final nail in the coffin of the LNR; it was in fact the devastating effect of the Second World War.

On the horrific night of April 16 1941, at the height of the terrifying London Blitz, thousands of tons of bombs dropped on the capital, killing in excess of 1,000 of London’s inhabitants.

Much of the area around Westminster Road was reduced to rubble – including the London Necropolis Railway. All that remained when the “all clear” siren sounded were the bare platforms.

It was decided, after the end of the war in 1945, that the cost of rebuilding the line would not be feasible, even when taking into account the war damage compensation offered by the government.

The LNR had carried its final coffin!

So what, if anything, remains of the former “funeral line” today?

At Brookwood cemetery the two stations survived for a while. The North Station was demolished in the 1960’s due to dry-rot, and as a result of a fire the South Station disappeared in 1972, although the original platforms still exist in both locations. Incidentally, the purpose-built “dips” in these platforms, to ease the unloading of the coffins from the trains, can still clearly be seen.

The railway tracks have long since disappeared.

However, all was not lost completely in the story of the LNR.

The two chapels where the short funeral services would have been held still exist, and the South Station Chapel has been painstakingly restored to its former glory by an order of monks, known as the St. Edward Brotherhood who regularly worships there.

So, over one hundred years after its inception, the memory of London’s Unique Funeral Railway lingers on.

Further articles by Charles Moorhen:

• Superstitions Surrounding Babies
• Exploring The English Village Churchyard
• Smith’s Crisps and the Little Blue Salt Bag.
• Santa Claus Is Hiding Behind The Curtain.

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