For the London aficionados, and its history, a programme on Tuesday 13th May, on BBC4 at 7.30. Worth a watch even if it is just outside the old Southwark borough boundary... The London Necropolis railway station was located at Waterloo and was the London terminus of the London Necropolis Railway. The Necropolis railway was opened in 1854. It was in consequence to the severe overcrowding in the London County Council area of both private and public graveyards and cemeteries. The Necropolis Company aimed to use the recent technology of the railway to transport burials to the newly commissioned Brookwood Cemetery in Brookwood, Surrey. The distance was within easy travelling distance of Central London, but considered to be distant enough that the dead could not pose any risk to public hygiene. (What the dead were doing to public health in the already overcrowded cemeteries was never stated!) Necropolises first station was in operation from 1854 to 1902. The second, whose frontage remains in Waterloo Road, was working from 1902 to 1941. Although the Company it had its own branch line into Brookwood Cemetery, most of the route of the London Necropolis Railway ran on the existing London and South Western Railway track. Therefore, a site was selected in Waterloo, near the opened Waterloo terminus. The building was specifically designed for the use of mourners. It had many private waiting rooms, which could also be used to hold funeral services, and also a hydraulic lift to raise coffins to platform level. Some of the existing railway arches were used for the storage of bodies. Towards the end of the Blitz, on the 16 April 1941, the station was heavily damaged by enemy bombing. The building was severely damaged, parts destroyed, and the tracks to the station were rendered unusable. Some funeral trains did continued to operate from the nearby Waterloo station, however the London terminus was never used again. Following the war the London Necropolis Company considered that reopening the London Necropolis Railway was not financially viable. The surviving part of the station building (pictured) was sold off as office space and still stands today.
Posted on: Sat, 10 May 2014 12:31:14 +0000
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