Brigade of Guards Monument (1889)
The heart of the cemetery’s infantry section.
Marble cross
An elegant marble cross stands guard over a field of eighteen white headstones, marking the burial place of many hundreds of peacetime casualties from the Brigade of Guards between 1854 and 1899.
Grade II listed monument
The monument’s stepped base features oval reliefs of the badges of the three earliest Regiments of Guards: the Coldstream, Grenadier and Scots Guards.
The monument, which is listed Grade II, includes pyramids of heaped cannonballs and gun barrels in Portland stone. It originally also featured brass field guns, which were removed in World War II. Some believed they were sent back to the front line.
The Brigade of Guards established in 1856
Brompton Cemetery was the London District's Military Cemetery from 1854 to 1939. The Brigade of Guards established its own section for burials that year, and The Royal Hospital Chelsea purchased a plot for its veteran British Army soldiers.
The Brigade of Guards was established in 1856 to administer the British Army’s guards regiments, under the command of a major-general. Their headquarters were at Wellington Barracks at Westminster. After reorganisation in recent years, the Brigade became the Guards Division and includes the Welsh and Irish Guards.
