The Brandenburg cemetery in Bilthoven

Today, we will visit the Brandenburg cemetery in Bilthoven. Though this cemetery is in Bilthoven, it was actually built as the cemetery of neighbouring town De Bilt. The Brandenburg cemetery was opened in 1900, and built out of town, as was required in those days. Today, it is on the border of De Bilt and Bilthoven.

I had the impression that there were many graves crammed into a too small cemetery: The rows of graves were close together, and the graves within the rows were also quite close to each other. Probably a lack of space. The cemetery also seemed a bit dull: The graves are aligned in neat rows along grassy paths, and there were very few extraordinary tombs.

There was an interesting mix of old and new graves, though, tombs from different periods can often be seen next to each other. This is probably because many old graves were removed, and the plots reused (as is customary in Holland and many other European countries).

Though most tombs had rather straightforward head stones, there were a few noticeable tombs. I will show some of these over the next few weeks in Tombstone Tuesday posts.

Photos by the author, May 2009. Click images to enlarge.

Wordless Wednesday: No dogs allowed

Verboden voor honden (No dogs allowed). Brandenburg cemetery, De Bilt. Photo by the author, May 2009.