Photographs by Robert Freidus included in the Victorian Web by kind permission of Brookwood Cemetery. Text by Jacqueline Banerjee. Formatting and perspective correction by George P. Landow. [Click on all images to enlarge them.]
The Monastery of the St Edward the Martyr Orthodox Brotherhood, Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey, by Irina Hoble-Aldersley, a contemporary Surrey architect. According to the cemetery's own site, the Brotherhood, which protects the relics of St Edward the Martyr, later 10c King of Wessex, moved into this little (southern) part of Brookwood Cemetery in 1979 ("About the Cemetery"). Its new purpose-built monastery was finally ready to be occupied in 2007. It was intended to look at home in its surroundings, and blends in perfectly with the earlier cemetery architecture. The Brotherhood itself, believing in the full bodily resurrection of the dead, seems very much at home in Brookwood.
Left: The larger (former) Anglican Chapel of 1909-10, designed by Cyril Tubbs and Arthur Messer, now the church of the St Edward the Martyr Orthodox Brotherhood. Right two pictures: Sydney Smirke's original (former) Anglican Chapel of 1854. This smaller chapel by Smirke is where the Brothers were accommodated before their new monastery was built. Now it is used for administering their parish, visitors' rooms etc. NB. The former Anglican Chapel of 1854 matches the former Dissenters' Chapel, also by Smirke, although that one's tower had been dismantled, and it is now in use by the Najmi Baag.
Ian Nairn and Nikolaus Pevsner were quite dismissive of the chapels: "The chapels are not of interest, but some of the mausolea are" (120). However, restoration work, and indeed the addition of the new monastery, has done much to improve the appearance of the two Anglican chapels, at least.
Related Material
- History of Brookwood Cemetery (shows the alignment of the three buildings in the southern section)
- The Columbarian, and the Catholic and Dissenters' Chapels
Bibliography
"About the Cemetery." Brookwood Cemetery Society. Web. 11 July 2013.
Clarke, John. "Brookwood Cemetery." Woking History Journal. Vol. I (1989): 15-22. Web. 11 July 2013.
Nairn, Ian and Nikolaus Pevsner, Nikolaus. The Buildings of England: Surrey. 2nd ed. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971.
"Orthodox Beliefs and Worship (3)." St Edward the Martyr Orthodox Brotherhood (explains the guardianship of relics). Web. 11 July 2013.
"St Edward Brotherhood" St Edward the Martyr Orthodox Brotherhood (includes information about the buildings). Web. 11 July 2013.
Last modified 10 March 2013