Month: October 2017

Madam, have you paid the correct fare for that coffin? The Necropolis Railway rides again!

On By shadowsflyawayIn Events2 Comments
Eager listeners to the conductor’s spooky tales at the London Dungeon.
No photographer stated. Used without permission.

This Halloween the London Dungeon’s offering a new temporary attraction based on a long defunct Victorian mode of funerary transport – the Necropolis Railway!  The London Dungeon’s renamed I their version The Death Express and has promised that it will be their ‘scariest attraction yet’.  It features a tormented train conductor (nothing unusual there especially if they work on Southern Railway….) and visitors will be on a train carriage with the dead people, coffins and mourners.’   Characters will be on board to tell scary stories and you are advised not to look at the windows…

The actual Necropolis Railway lasted for 87 years from 1854 to 1941 and transported  mourners and their dearly departed  from a dedicated station at Waterloo station in London to Brookwood cemetery near Woking.

With the usual heady mixture of Victorian enthusiasm and optimism the London Necropolis Company (LNC) envisaged that Brookwood Cemetery would be able to accommodate all of London’s dead for centuries to come and they were also very keen to achieve a monopoly on the capitals’ burial business. However, although the LNC had planned for the Railway to carry between 10,000 and 50,000 bodies per year it never achieved that and it slowly began to decline.

However the true horror of the Necropolis Railway was,  that even in death, the Victorian class system was strictly observed with first, second and third class fares, segregated waiting rooms and carriages and even the coffins were also kept rigidly apart.   There was even a fare charged for coffins.  Although the London Dungeon may have their own way of punishing fare dodgers – perhaps  for eternity……

The trains were also divided by class and religion with separate Anglican and non-conformist (effectively non-Anglicans) with separate First, Second and Third class compartments within each.  I doubt that the London Dungeon will be offering this particular form of heritage memorabilia  but you never know……

However, it was the Luftwaffe that dealt the final blow on the night of 16-17 April 1941 when an air raid permanently damaged the London terminus and the service effectively ceased.  After the end of the Second World War what remained of the railway was sold off for office space with the track being removed during 1947-19.48.  However there is one Necropolis Railway building still standing and it’s located at 121 Westminster Bridge Road. This was the first class entrance to the 1902 terminus.

121 Westminster Bridge Road – the only surviving building of the London Necropolis Railway. Originally it was the First class entrance to the 1902 terminus.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:©Davidmpye~commonswiki&action=edit&redlink=1

And yet the Necropolis Railway refuses to be shunted into oblivion.  Andrew Martin wrote a best selling novel called strangely enough, The Necropolis Railway, in 2015 a theatre company mounted a production based on it in the Waterloo Vaults and it also appeared in  a dramatic train crash in an episode of TV’s Ripper Street.

 

Brookwood Cemetery is well worth a visit and traces of the railway track bed can still be seen within the grounds and the Friends of Brookwood Cemetery run tours of the railway route during the year.   The two stations North and South are both now long gone

The Death Express runs until November 8 2017.

However, despite the London Dungeon’s reputation for spine-chilling scares there was one distinct advantage of the Railway in its heyday – you were always assured of a quiet carriage…….

©Text  Carole Tyrrell

http://www.baselessfabric.co.uk/previous-productions/

https://londonist.com/london/things-to-do/the-necropolis-railway-shrieks-into-the-london-dungeon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Necropolis_Railway

http://www.tbcs.org.uk/cemetery_railway.html

https://www.thedungeons.com/london/en

 

 

 

 

 

Symbol of the Month – Mizpah

On By shadowsflyawayIn Symbol of the month6 Comments
A close-up view of the MIZPAH on Emma Williams headstone.
©Carole Tyrrell

This month’s symbol features a single word, MIZPAH, but it is a term and an emblem of an emotional bond that goes beyond the grave. However, it doesn’t appear to be a common symbol and so far I have only discovered three instances of in in nearby cemeteries.

I often used to see Mizpah inscribed on old fashioned jewellery such as brooches during the 1970’s and ‘80’s when browsing  in charity shops and jumble sales. At that time I thought that it might have been Hebrew, or a similar language, and might have stood for Mother.

However, during this year’s Open House I visited St Nicholas church in Chislehurst as I’d read somewhere that Napoleon III was buried there.  Alas, it was the wrong church and he has long since been re-interred elsewhere. However, on a churchyard tour that afternoon, led by Peter Appleby, I finally learned what it actually signified as he indicated Mizpah on the Campbell monument.  He said that it came from an Old Testament phrase ‘I will set around you a mountain which will keep you and protect you.’ I haven’t been able to find this particular Biblical quotation although Psalm 27.5 seems to be the likeliest source.

The word appears in the Old Testament in Genesis 31:49 :

‘And Mizpah, for he said, the Lord watch between you and me, when we are out of another’s sight.’  King James Bible

In other words the one left behind is still protected and watched over even though their loved one has gone.  The touching link between two people or an entire family who have been separated by death or another force.

But there is another version, according to Wikipedia, in which it’s claimed that Mizpah stands for ’Lord watch over me’ and relates to the story of Jacob and Laban. Jacob fled with from Laban’s house in the middle of the night with all of his earthly possessions including animals, wives and children and Laban was soon in pursuit.  But the two men came to an agreement and built a watchtower or Mizpah.  This would be a border between their respective territories and neither would pass the watchtower, which was reputed to be merely a pile of stones, to visit the other to do evil. God would be the only witness to their pact and would protect one from the other.  Today a modern village stands on the supposed site called Metullah which means lookout.

However I prefer the more poignant reference to the affectionate ties between the departed and the bereaved and the wish to leave them with the feeling that they were still being supported and protected as exemplified by the one simple word.

MIZPAH jewellery is still available and is often in the form of a coin shaped pendant, cut in two, with a zig-zag line bearing the words that I quoted in the first paragraph.

Here are two examples that I found online; one is vintage and the other is contemporary.

This first example is from Beckenham Cemetery and the Victorian epitaph is an affectionate tribute to a much loved and missed wife, Emma.

The second is from the Campbell monument in St Nicholas churchyard.  The Celtic cross above the grave has strapwork made from entwined snakes, themselves symbols of eternity and mortality.  The Campbells had two famous sons; Sir Malcolm Campbell and his son Donald.  Note the small motif of a bluebird in one corner above the epitaph.  This was the name of the vehicles on which both Sir Malcolm and Donald achieved several world speed records during their lifetimes. Donald was tragically killed in 1967 when another world speed record breaking attempt on Coniston Water went tragically wrong and both he and Bluebird sank the bottom of the lake.  It wasn’t until 2001 that his remains were discovered and buried in Coniston cemetery.  Nick Wales, his son, maintains the grave and also holds the world record for the fastest lawnmower. He has also tested a new Bluebird over Bewl Water.

The final one is a modern version, again from Beckenham Cemetery, and is edicated to a Kathleen Sabine and dates from 2000.

A modern version dating from 2000, the Sabine memorial, from Beckenham Cemetery/ Note that it’s on a Book of Life.
©Carole Tyrrell

©Text and photos Carole Tyrrell unless otherwise stated.

http://biblehub.com/genesis/31-49.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mizpah_(emotional_bond)

http://www.helenalind.com/mizpah.htmlhttp://mizpah.biz/what-does-word-mizpah-mean

http://mizpah.biz/what-does-word-mizpah-mean

http://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/mizpah/