Inspired – Lizzie Mary Cullen

What I love about the UK is that around every corner there’s a hidden gem waiting to be discovered. Whether you’re lost or you’ve gone exploring to find that secret treasure, chances are you won’t be disappointed.

The Necropolis Railway in London is one such place. Placed discreetly between modern office blocks, coffee house chains and Internet cafés there is a fantastic former gateway to another world. Behind the building’s unassuming red-brick architecture lies a ghoulish and typically Victorian invention.

In the mid-1800s, as London’s cemeteries were overflowing, the Necropolis Railway was built to take the city’s dead on their final journey. The train ran three times a day from Waterloo to its terminus at Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey, where the tracks are still visible beneath the grass and weeds.

After World War II the train never ran again, the railway having been bombed in 1941, but the deserted station still stands on Westminster Bridge Road, a lasting reminder of London’s ingenious yet grisly past.