Muslim War Cemetery Peace Garden

A site with fascinating history and a shining example of bringing together multiple faiths and cultures, the Muslim Burial Ground in Woking was granted a well-deserved fund from English Heritage and Woking Borough Council for vital repairs and refurbishment.

In 2013, The terra firma Consultancy Ltd was brought in as designers for a project which would later be featured on BBC One and win a LGN Award.

The project started with a loose brief; to conceive a special place of remembrance that celebrates the vast and vitally important contribution made to the Allied war efforts by armies of the Indian sub-continent. In doing so, the site would be a timely reminder of togetherness in today’s mixed-culture Britain.

The burial ground and garden bring together the cultural expression of a traditional Islamic garden while merging with natural elements of Horsell Common. The boundary walls set up a formal geometry surrounding a central waterbody which is fed by a small waterfall and upper-pool by a rill. An up-lit memorial stone engraved with the names of the fallen soldiers illusively ‘floats’ on the upper-pool as the garden’s focus.

Boundary planting was kept low to reduce screening from the listed walls, while columnar planting at either end of the garden bring focus to the Chattri and memorial stone. A total of 27 trees are planted within the walls – one for each of the servicemen originally buried in the grounds.

Representing a meeting of cultures, the garden brought together the community from the very beginning. Early design sketches were approved by both community stakeholders and the local Shah Jahan Mosque, local schoolchildren assisted with planting operations alongside the Army – including Muslim representatives.

Maintenance was always a concern with the project, as it is with any garden, so future maintenance plans were kept to a low with the use of minimal lighting, robust hard materials, and planting kept simple and appropriate to the site’s soils – which were not replaced and only fractionally ameliorated.