A woman wanting to "fill a void" in her family’s past travelled 900 miles across Europe to visit an abandoned cemetery where her grandfather is buried.
Anna Osuchowska-Kościjańska, 41, who lives in Poland, visited Epsom, accompanied by friends, last month to visit Horton Cemetery, off Hook Road, which contains 8,000 bodies of those who died at Horton Hospital and the other hospitals in the Epsom cluster of mental hospitals, which closed in the 1990s.
Horton was a war hospital during the World Wars and a number of soldiers are believed to be among the dead in its overgrown and uncared for cemetery.
This newspaper has been charting the research of Epsom councillor Sheila Carlson into the cemetery since human remains surfaced at the site in March last year.
It was sold off by the regional health authority to private developer Marques Securities in 1983 with no conditions placed on its maintenance.
Since then it has fallen into disrepair with rubbish strewn throughout the area among trees and dense undergrowth.
Coun Carlson is hunting for the names of soldiers buried at the cemetery, in a bid to have them officially commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), which she hopes will force the owners to show a sense of moral responsibility to maintain the cemetery.
It is believed that Anna’s grandfather Izydor Grunik, a Polish soldier who came over to work for the British army during World War 1, died in 1943 in Long Grove Hospital.
After discovering that her grandfather’s death certificate shows he was buried in Horton Cemetery and reading articles written by the Epsom Guardian as part of its Dignity for Horton’s Dead campaign online, Anna travelled to England to see the place "where he was buried and where he spent the last years of his life".
Led by Coun Carlson, Anna and her friends were shown around the cemetery and the original buildings which still remain on the old Epsom Cluster site.
Coun Carlson said that the group placed candles and flowers at the war memorial outside the cemetery and that, once in the middle of the cemetery, Anna took a "tearful" few minutes to herself and telephoned her mother back in Poland.
After the visit, Anna said she knew she would not find her grandfather’s grave and that the cemetery is "uncared for", but that "it is not important any more".
She said: "8,000 people among them my grandfather, do not have graves but there remains a trace of memory in the form of nature being reborn each Spring.
"It is green and quiet place, I found there not only emotions but peace."
Anna’s friend, Anna Szymulska, 41, a fellow Pole who lives in Sweden, who visited the cemetery with her, said: "My friend Anna really liked the cemetery despite it being overgrown.
"It was beautiful in itself, she looked at it like a forest.
"She told me she felt a void before we went there."
She added: "In Poland, cemeteries are really taken care of by relatives.
"It’s tradition to go once a year and light a candle and say a prayer.
"This was completely different. I was surprised that this could be private land with no moral obligation to take care of it."
Coun Carlson said the visit was "very emotional" and that the group found the Epsom cluster site to be a "nice surprise" as "there are lots of green spaces".
She said: "Anna said that, if her grandfather had to end up in a mental institution, there are worse places he could have been.
"This trip meant an awful lot to this girl.
"There is a feeling among her and her mother that they have a need to fill in the gaps.
"This visit wasn’t closure, but I imagine it gives a certain feeling of some settlement."
Coun Carlson said it is unclear as to how Izydor ended up in Long Grove and how he died, but it is believed that it may have been to do with tuberculosis.
She added: "For the purposes of the CWGC, Izydor didn’t die of his wounds and he died too late for an official commemoration.
"But I would like to erect a plaque on the railings around the cemetery for the Polish soldiers buried there, and we just have to keep going."
In November, the Polish Heritage Society pledged its support to the Dignity for Horton’s Dead campaign after being "appalled" by the treatment of the dead buried there.
Do you have any information about Horton Cemetery? Email Hardeep Matharu on the newsdesk on hmatharu@london.newsquest.co.uk
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