'HIDDEN' CEMETERY

It began with a public open day at a Norfolk railway station, the 'selling point' being that the station in question, County School, had not been used for years because the line had ceased business and grass was growing between the rusty rails. In fact, passenger services had stopped in 1964 and freight services in 1981. Then a group of railway enthusiasts took it on with long-term plans to get the trains running again, and they began the task by renovating and sprucing up the place.
County School rail halt, a few miles from North Elmham, is what urban dwellers would describe as isolated and lonely, or 'out in the sticks.' Though not as lonely, perhaps, as Berney Arms rail halt in the middle of Halvergate marsh. However, once upon a time County School was connected to the East Dereham line and was so-named because there was actually a school there. Or nearby, on the other side of some belts of trees. Originally known as the Norfolk County School, this extensive establishment later became the Watts Naval Training School.
Norfolk County School was opened in 1873, the foundation stone being laid by the Prince of Wales, later Edward V11, but it lasted only until 1895, after which it stood empty and remote in its 60-acre grounds. Then in 1901 it was taken over by EH Watts as a home for Barnado boys and was ear-marked, two years' later, as a training school for selected Barnado boys destined for the Merchant Navy.
The Naval Training School finally opened in 1906 with nautical classrooms, hall, chapel and library. Later still, after the training school was closed and demolished, the chapel was converted into a house. Then trees grew around the site, sheltering it even further from public gaze.
Meanwhile, the open day was a great success. We wandered around the renovated and redecorated platforms and buildings, and recognised what a great deal of labour the volunteers had put into saving this most modest little rail halt. Even so, it was still a work in progress, and still is for that matter, for the dream of bringing trains from Wymondham through County School once more has still not materialised. Yet the volunteers continue to toil, and hope.
Anyway, we looked around the station, bought some souvenir postcards, and then went for a stroll in the sunshine over the level crossing and along a tree-lined lane on the other side. We did not realise it at the time, but this was almost certainly private land. So we continued to stroll, and after a few minutes our eyes were attracted to what looked like sections of ornamental railing partially hidden in the trees and a stride or two off the main route. We stepped into the trees, and discovered the little cemetery.
We found a handful of graves, marked by headstones, locked into the silence of their woodland surroundings, and most of them, so it appeared, the final resting places of Barnado boys who had died during the years when the naval school was open. The grave markers showed most of them to have been in their early teens at the time.
Quite how many boys were buried there I do not know. Nor do I know the reasons for their demise, though I assume - and this relates to the early years of the 20th century, remember - that childhood illnesses and infections were behind most of them. Nevertheless it was, I recall, a beautiful and lonely place, redolent with sadness. Not the sort of words you would usually use to describe the environs of a railway station.