Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey

Opened in November 1854, Brookwood Cemetery is the largest cemetery in Britain and was at the time of its founding the largest in the world. Unique to its history is how Brookwood Cemetery was used to provide additional burial space for overcrowded London cemeteries in the mid-19th century, with The London Necropolis Railway linking Brookwood with Waterloo station in London.

Listed as Grade 1 Historic Park and Gardens, Brookwood and its history are of outstanding cultural and historical significance. Brookwood is a multi-denominational cemetery with thousands of funerary monuments at the site (many of which are separately listed) providing a diverse record of the varying burial traditions of a range of different communities, classes, cultures and faith groups as these have evolved across the past century and a half.

Brookwood Cemetery was acquired by Woking Borough Council in 2014. At that time, the Cemetery was in need of considerable works to maintain, restore and bring the Cemetery back to its former glory.

Sharman Projects have been appointed as Project Manager, Contract Administrator and Quantity Surveyor on a variety of projects at Brookwood Cemetery and continue to do so on an ongoing basis.

Projects so far have included:

• Glades House and North Chapel refurbishment works,
• Colquhoun Chapel restoration,
• The Columbarium restoration,
• New landscaping and pond adjacent Glades House,
• Construction of a new burial area: Plot 121,
• Repairs and part rebuilding of the Brookwood Cemetery perimeter wall,
• Site wide ditch clearance and drainage works,
• Site wide parking and verge protection works, and
• Site wide utilities survey.

Contractors and consultants who have been part of the Project Teams working at Brookwood Cemetery include: Ash Contracting Ltd, Blakedown Landscapes, Bill Kear Plant and Agricultural Contractors Ltd, Cliveden Conservation, CSE Consulting, Sally Strachey Historic Conservation Ltd, Shore Engineering, Surrey Wildlife Trust Ltd, Water Environment Ltd, Ward Associates and Warner Surveys.

Watch the video to learn more about the Colquhoun Chapel works and to hear the story of the lost chapel.