Corner of a Foreign Field- The British Cemetery at Kathmandu

About the Book This history of the British Cemetery in Kathmandu encompasses the entire story of Western involvement in Nepal. In the nineteenth century British diplomats in the remote Himalayan outpost of Kathmandu Valley had no choice but to bury their dead in the corner of a farmer's field close to their embassy. Its memorials to colleagues, wives and children some grand, some humble are a poignant reminder of the long interaction between Britain and Nepal. When other foreigners arrived in the 1950s, demand for burial space grew. This tranquil graveyard now houses the mortal remains of a hundred or so individuals from two centuries-mountaineers, missionaries, soldiers, tourism entrepreneurs, development workers, writers, poets and artists. This is their epitaph.

About the Author Mark Watson (left) is Head of Major Floras at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, and Editor-in Chief of Flora of Nepal. He has a long connection with Nepal, with his botanical interests leading him to the grave of Scotsman Robert Stuart in Kathmandu one of the first plant collectors in Nepal. This started a 15-year research project on the British Cemetery, teaming up along the way with Andrew Hall (right) who has spent over 50 years visiting and living in Nepal, first as an anthropologist and then a diplomat. In the 1990s Andrew was Her Britannic Majesty's Consul, responsible for the welfare of British citizens, including those who sought burial there. He returned in 2006 for four years as British Ambassador. Andrew's research into the history of the British Embassy in Kathmandu, and his insights from personal experience, add flesh and color to the bare bones of written historical records.

Foreword Britain's friendship with Nepal goes back over 200 years and has many aspects. One of its lesser-known legacies is Nepal's only European graveyard, the British Cemetery in Kathmandu. What was once a little hillock surrounded by small farms has now become a quiet garden of remembrance, to be found beyond the Embassy in the now built-up. bustling area where Lainchaur shades into Samakhusi.

The cemetery and the graves it shelters have a story to tell about Britain's presence in Nepal. In the nineteenth century, when the Embassy was known as a Residency, the cemetery was the final resting place of those British staff and their families who died during their posting to Kathmandu. From the mid-twentieth century, as Nepal opened its doors to the outside world, expatriates came not just from Britain but from all over the world. Some established businesses which helped put Nepal on the tourism map. Others staffed hospitals and clinics. Still others were teachers or development experts Quite a few made Nepal their home and when they died the British Cemetery provided, for some, their final resting place; as it also did for occasional tragic victims of mountaineering accidents and air crashes.

It is 200 years since the first burial. There could be nobody better to tell the cemetery's story than Mark Watson and Andrew Hall. Dr Watson is Britain's foremost expert on the flora of Nepal, and the Head of Major Floras at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. He is the latest in the lineage of distinguished botanists going back to the first days of the British presence here. Dr Hall is a former anthropologist and retired diplomat who has known Nepal for over 50 years. In the 1990s he served as British Consul in Kathmandu and in the 2000s he returned as British Ambassador. As the current custodian of the British Cemetery I have been fascinated by this glimpse into our two countries' shared history. You surely will be too as you read on.

Preface That there's some corner of a foreign field That is forever England. There shall be In that rich earth a richer dust concealed.... Rupert Brooke, The Soldier (1914).

Kapurdhara Marg, north-west of the old centre of Kathmandu, is remarkable only for being extraordinarily narrow and hemmed in for its first few hundred metres by towering cement-rendered security walls. It is a tarmacked lane that threads its way between the Indian and British embassies, the British to the south and the Indian to the north. There is barely room for a single car to pass, and it would be a struggle to cut through the seemingly endless stream of motorbikes, cycles and pedestrians who use this shortcut between Lazimpat and Samakhushi.

Officially this is one-way, but locals seem to think that this only applies to cars, with predictable results. Some make their way to the vegetable market on the slope down to Kapurdhara, an area named after an ancient waterspout (dhana in Nepali, biti in Newari) with a huge, spreading camphor tree (kapur in Nepali; Cinnamomum camphora) which used to shade it, but is now long gone. The waterspout is just across the road opposite the south-west corner of the Indian Embassy compound; most people hurry past without even noticing.

Kapurdhara Marg is an ancient byway, dating back to at least 1816 when the British set up their diplomatic mission, the first by any country in Nepal, on land now given over to India. At its western end is a small, roughly triangular burial ground, once densely shaded by pine trees and rising to a prominent hillock on the eastern side.

**Contents and Sample Pages**