St. Lawrence's Hospital Burial Ground

While staying with my mother in Caterham recently, I was delighted to read the article about the restoration of the St. Lawrence's Hospital burial ground in Chaldon.

It was quite a coincidence because I had just written an account of my early teenage years in Caterham for my Writers' Group in Switzerland where I now live. This memoir included descriptions of several visits to the burial ground that two friends and I had first discovered whilst biking around the fields behind St. Lawrence's.

It looked neglected and overgrown even then, over 50 years ago. I remember pushing open the rusty iron gate into this secret place. The little chapel there had ledges or shelves inside which were, we decided, to hold the coffins. Next to it were a couple of full-length graves.

Once, after having a midnight feast in Queen's Park, we three girls dared ourselves to venture there, and, on arrival, we used our torches to peer into the gap which had formed between the gravestone and the earth beneath.

So, after reading the newspaper article, I set off with a friend. And, with the help of a kind gentleman called Paul, we found the site, which we now saw was next to a golf course.

What a change – I hardly recognised it! We couldn't see the chapel, or the graves as we remembered them, but noticed two stone angels marking children's resting places, and there were also some other small headstones.

I was comforted to know that the souls resting under the earth were not forgotten, because they at last had been acknowledged and lay in a worthy and dignified garden of rest.

If any reader remembers the burial site as it was in former times, and would like to share their memories with me, I can be contacted at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Kathryn Mühlethaler (née Wales), Langendorf, Switzerland.