'I was horrified': The Mental Asylum graveyard with 9000 bodies SOLD off to private landowner
Our investigation into the fate of Britain's mental asylum graveyards visits Europe's biggest site to find it was sold off decades ago.
Last updated 23rd Jul 2025
It's thought Horton Cemetery in Surrey is the biggest of its kind in Europe.
Around 9000 people, from five local mental hospitals known as the Epsom cluster, were laid to rest there during the Victorian asylum era, up to the mid 20th Century.
But our Lost Souls investigation has been hearing how, in 1983, it was sold to a private landowner, and now lies overgrown, inaccessible and with nowhere for families to remember their loved ones.
Lost Souls investigation uncovers fate of asylum graveyards
Our Lost Souls investigation has been looking at the fate of Britain's asylum graveyards, where a quarter of a million people were buried - often without headstones.
We uncovered that these "pauper lunatic" graves are now, in many cases, forgotten, abandoned, or neglected.
Thousands upon thousands of former mental health patients lying unmarked.
In Horton's case - the land was sold with the bodies still contained within, and now lies by a busy B-road with only a couple of clues that such a significant piece of social history sits there, in plain sight.
There is no public access.
Nowhere for people to pay their respects.
And time has taken its toll.
LISTEN: Mick Coyle visits Horton Cemetery for the Lost Souls documentary:
MP speaks out about the fate of Horton Cemetery
"You can see its been left in total disrepair, the land has been sold to a private landowner... when there are are 9000 individuals who are there. I was horrified."
Helen Maguire became MP for Epsom and Ewell at the 2024 General Election, but had been active in the community for many years before, and has become well versed on the tragic tale of Horton Cemetery.
Local community volunteers, led by Friends of Horton Cemetery have held various events over the years to try and honour those interred in the cemetery, but those events have to take place away from the site itself because public access it prohibited.
Helen says that's at-odds with the history of the site: "It's about heritage and its about education. In Epsom you used to walk around the town centre and it was normal to interact with individuals with mental health conditions. It's about what it was like back then, and understanding its apart of the heritage of Epsom."
The Lib Dem MP says she wants to see the site made accessible for the public and relatives of those inside, and tells us she wants to take steps to make that happen: "I would really welcome the opportunity to have a conversation with the landowner to see if we can find ways to return this graveyard to a public location so relatives can access it.
"It's about heritage, education, and people being able to learn about what Epsom used to be. This isn't just in Epsom, it's in other places as well, other locations where graveyards have even built over. This is the start of a conversation that raises the awareness of mental health."
Helen Maguire also backed calls for a new national memorial to honour those whose burial sites have been lost or forgotten across the nation: "I think a memorial is a great idea. These individuals have been forgotten and in many situations its not like Horton, where we might have the possibility of making it public one day.
"I think its really important that we recognise and we remember all these forgotten individuals and I think a memorial would be a great way to do that.
"With (Lost Souls') raising the profile of this, it's great because it's making people aware of areas they might not even know about, and we can really start a national conversation about this, protecting and preserving this heritage for the future."
We have written to the landowner to see if he would like to contribute to our investigation, but at the time of writing he has not responded.
What is the status of Horton Cemetery?
Cllr Neil Dallen, Chair of Strategy & Resources Committee at Epsom and Ewell Borough Council said: "Horton Cemetery, a derelict cemetery linked to Epsom’s former psychiatric hospitals known as the “Epsom Cluster”, was sold by The Department of Health & Social Care to a private property company in 1983 . Since then, nature has taken its course, and the site has become a woodland.
"The site is protected from commercial development by the Disused Burial Grounds Act 1884, is excluded from development in the council’s emerging borough Local Plan and has additional protection against development due to its Local Listing as a place of significant local heritage, which has been in place since 2004."
Lost Souls investigation visits Horton Cemetery
The following is an excerpt from our original Lost Souls article, written by Senior Correspondent Mick Coyle which you can read in full here.
Francesca Gyau is visiting Horton Cemetery in Surrey for the first time, on the trail of her great-grandmother, Hilda Nicholls.
Hilda's inside the cemetery, lying unmarked in a plot of 9000 graves near Epsom which was used to house the bodies of a cluster of local asylums. But the boundary is as close as she's allowed to go.
It's clear Francesca is unhappy: "I'm disgusted by what I see, I can't get in there, there are 9000 people buried there, this is sacred ground and it doesn't look very sacred."
We cross a busy road to an opening in the fence. A path opens up alongside a field of horses, but a 'Private' sign stops us in our tracks. After making the trip from Hertfordshire, Francesca can't quite believe what she's seeing. "They were people, they are people, if Hilda hadn't been here, I wouldn't be here. She just deserves respect.
"Her whole life she was made to feel ashamed of, she was hidden away, and that's how she died and now she's been buried in a place like this, it's like she's being disrespected in death as she was in life.
"This isn't kind to do this to people, whether they're alive or dead, this isn't kind."
Francesca tells me she's pleased she started researching her family tree, and is keen to let others know Hilda's story, and those like her: "For generation after generation we were told 'don't talk about it, don't look' but the past needs to be brought to the surface, how are we going to learn from our mistakes if we don't talk about it?"
Friends of Horton Cemetery aim to make cemetery public
The Friends of Horton Cemetery are trying to raise awareness of this specific site, and have spent many years trying to engage with authorities to purchase the land and create a memorial space to remember those buried there.
But their campaigning is at an impasse.
This plot was sold off in the 1980s, and is now overgrown woodland. A small plaque marks the site, but it's barely readable from the roadside.
A stone memorial, erected after a FOHC campaign at the start of this century lies broken nearby, having been struck by a car. The memorial had to be placed on the road-side of the boundary because the group couldn't secure its place inside without the owner's permission.
It's left campaigner Lionel Blackman frustrated, both for the community today, but also because of the perceived lack of dignity it offers to those interred inside.
He told me: "It's a historic wrong to sell a plot containing 9000 graves. If it was your grandmother, mother, son or daughter and then where they're buried is going to be ignored having been sold, how would you feel?
"You don't now just neglect that cemetery, let it overgrow, not allow relatives to visit because it's trespass. That's the bottom line of this."
Mental asylum graves still relevant today
Lionel also sees a bridge in time, which makes the case of Horton cemetery relevant to 21st Century Britain, adding: "If we can demonstrate respect for those who are buried I think it makes a major contribution to the acceptance, respect and recognition of those living with a mental health condition."
Read more on our investigation into Britain's Lost Souls