A Halloween Ode to Brompton Cemetery

Opened in 1840, Brompton is one of seven grand garden cemeteries in London. The city was growing so quickly that there was barely enough room for the living, let alone the dead. With churchyards overflowing the Victorian government decided to expand into the the countryside and the market gardens of Brompton were chosen.

With its Grade 1 listing, the grand tree-lined Central Avenue and Chapel hosts over 200,000 people, marked by over 35,000 monuments each telling tales of lives well lived and loved.

Famous inhabitants include Suffragette leader, Emmeline Pankhurst, Dr John Snow who saved millions through his discovery of cholera’s spread through drinking water and Reginald Warneford VC; the first airman to shoot down a German airship in 1915 (some 50,000 people attended his burial).

A visit to this Royal Park is highly recommended. Read on for our Halloween ode to Brompton Cemetery.

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An ode to Brompton Cemetery

Amongst the moss and mottled leaves, sleeping souls lie still,

And all the yearning, churning grief is entombed with iron will.

Amidst the pomp and circumstance, the crypts, the tombs, the stone,

Coursing signs of buzzing life, make Brompton Cemetery home.

Dank, dark catacombs, encased and encrusted with rust,

Angels mourning, cawing sentries - black as coal and dusk.

The brazen and the rich, eternally rest in lavish tombs,

Flanked by more modest markers, yet sharing the All Hallows moon.

From heroes, mystics, comedians, soldiers, sisters, sons,

Emotions carved deep, raw and still; death - united as one.

That we must live, be loved and die is a universal truth,

The ‘beloved’, ‘mourned’, devotions of love are eternal proof.

And so the cycle begins again; saplings reaching for the skies,

Where decay litters the earth, nature feeds on all that dies.

Amongst the silent, sleeping rows, children feed the birds,

And the stories of the dead and lost, are once again to be heard.

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For more poetry, visit our Library.