Now heavily overgrown, most of the cemetery is maintained as managed woodland. The atmosphere of decayed grandeur make it the most magical of London's cemeteries and during the 1970s, a favorite location for shooting vampire films. Overcrowding led to the later addition of the larger but less impressive Eastern cemetery, connected to the Western section by a now disused tunnel under Swain's Lane which allowed coffins to pass from the two chapels under, rather than over, the public highway. It's most famous monument is that of Karl Marx, but other notable residents include novelist, George Eliot, actor Sir Ralph Richardson and William Friese-Greene, a pioneer of cinematography. The Eastern Cemetery is accessible daily for a small fee, but the Western Cemetery has been closed since 1975 and admission is by guided tour only.
Tours run daily.
Baud opted for a formal, symmetrical rectangular layout rather than the landscaped parklands of Kensal Green or The Victorian Undertaker Highgate. The design included a classical entrance gate lodge leading to a formal Central Avenue, opening into a Great Circle of arcaded galleries over catacombs and ending with a domed octagonal Anglican chapel flanked with galleries and topped with belltowers. Baud's over-ambitious design, which was to have included two side chapels, was never completed and the company found itself in financial difficulties even before the cemetery was consecrated. In 1850 Parliament passed an act which allowed the government to purchase the private cemetery companies, effectively nationalizing Brompton. The Act was promptly repealed, and Brompton remains the only private cemetery to be so nationalized.