Sherpur Cantonment, or the British Cemetery, is located in

Kabul Kabul (; ps, , ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province; it is administratively divided into 22 municipal districts. Acco ...

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

. The area was a British military camp or

cantonment A cantonment (, , or ) is a military quarters. In Bangladesh, India and other parts of South Asia, a ''cantonment'' refers to a permanent military station (a term from the British India, colonial-era). In military of the United States, United Stat ...

and the site of the 1879

Siege of the Sherpur Cantonment The siege of the Sherpur Cantonment was a battle fought in December 1879, during the Second Anglo-Afghan War. Background On 3 September 1879 Sir Pierre Cavagnari, the British Resident in Kabul, and his escort were massacred by mutinous Af ...

in the

Second Anglo-Afghan War The Second Anglo-Afghan War (Dari: جنگ دوم افغان و انگلیس, ps, د افغان-انګرېز دويمه جګړه) was a military conflict fought between the British Raj and the Emirate of Afghanistan from 1878 to 1880, when the l ...

. Now officially called the Christian Cemetery, it is known locally as the ''Kabre Gora'', or the 'foreigners' graveyard'.

Current cemetery and its history

The cemetery was built in 1879 for British soldiers killed in the

, replacing an earlier graveyard for the

First Anglo-Afghan War The First Anglo-Afghan War ( fa, جنگ اول افغان و انگلیس) was fought between the British Empire and the Emirate of Afghanistan, Emirate of Kabul from 1838 to 1842. The British initially successfully invaded the country taking si ...

, with some graves dating back to that 1842 defeat. Some 160 soldiers from that period are thought to be buried here. It also contains the remains of others, mainly civilians of various nationalities, who died in Kabul between the 19th and 21st centuries, and who required a Christian burial. During the 2000s, ten marble plaques were placed on the cemetery's southern wall, listing the names of British service personnel who died in Afghanistan after 2001. The cemetery is laid out as a garden, with

rose bushes A rose is either a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred species and tens of thousands of cultivars. They form a group of plants that can be ...

and trees and is enclosed by a tall wall, giving it a peaceful atmosphere and an unassuming exterior appearance. It is one of the few foreign historical and Christian landmarks to have survived the first period of Taliban rule that ended in 2001.

Maintaining the cemetery

The

caretaker Caretaker may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''The Caretaker'' (film), a 1963 adaptation of the play ''The Caretaker'' * '' The Caretakers'', a 1963 American film set in a mental hospital * Caretaker, a character in the 1974 film '' ...

of the cemetery from the 1980s was an Afghan man called Rahimullah, a

shepherd A shepherd or sheepherder is a person who tends, herds, feeds, or guards flocks of sheep. ''Shepherd'' derives from Old English ''sceaphierde (''sceap'' 'sheep' + ''hierde'' 'herder'). ''Shepherding is one of the world's oldest occupations, i ...

who used the cemetery to graze his animals. When he died in 2010, his son Abdul Sami continued to tend the cemetery, telling a reporter that "this place is very nearly not here" and crediting his father's devotion, including during the first period of

Taliban The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state (polity), state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalist, m ...

rule, for the fact that the

cemetery A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite or graveyard is a place where the remains of dead people are buried or otherwise interred. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek , "sleeping place") implies that the land is specifically designated as a buri ...

survived.

Notable burials

Notable burials include: *Major John Cook VC (1843–1879),

5th Gurkha Rifles 5th Gorkha Rifles (Frontier Force), also abbreviated as 5 GR(FF) is an infantry regiment of the Indian Army comprising Gurkha soldiers of Nepalese origin. It was formed in 1858 as part of the British Indian Army. The regiment's battalions served ...

. *

Aurel Stein Sir Marc Aurel Stein, ( hu, Stein Márk Aurél; 26 November 1862 – 26 October 1943) was a Hungarian-born British archaeologist, primarily known for his explorations and archaeological discoveries in Central Asia. He was also a professor at ...

(1862–1943), British-Hungarian

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

. *

Henning Haslund-Christensen Henning Haslund-Christensen (31 August 1896 – 13 September 1948) was a Danish travel writer and anthropologist. Life He was born in Copenhagen on 31 August 1896, and graduated from thØstersøgades Gymnasiumin Copenhagen. He enrolled at the ...

(1896–1948), Danish explorer. *

Gayle Williams Gayle Williams (18 December 1973 – 20 October 2008) was an aid worker for SERVE Afghanistan of joint British and South African nationality. She was shot on her way to work in Kabul, Afghanistan by two men on a motorbike. Zabiullah Mujahid, a sp ...

(1973–2008), British aid worker. There is a grave in Russian script to a Russian Cossack who fled to Kabul in the aftermath of the 1917

Bolshevik revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolsheviks, Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was ...

Fundraising for the graveyard

The cemetery is not formally recognised by the

Commonwealth War Graves Commission The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) is an intergovernmental organisation of six independent member states whose principal function is to mark, record and maintain the graves and places of commemoration of Commonwealth of Nations mil ...

and is still owned by the city of Kabul. However, Colonel Simon Diggins, the British defence attaché who coordinated

fundraising Fundraising or fund-raising is the process of seeking and gathering voluntary financial contributions by engaging individuals, businesses, charitable foundations, or governmental agencies. Although fundraising typically refers to efforts to gathe ...

for the cemetery in 2009, described it as a "labour of love. ... It's very important to us. It would be great to think that in ten years' time, families might be able to come out here and see it and enjoy the tranquillity."{{Cite news, last=Farmer, first=Ben , date=17 August 2009, title=Afghanistan: The corner of Kabul that is forever England , url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/6038841/Afghanistan-The-corner-of-Kabul-that-is-forever-England.html, access-date=11 September 2021, work=The Telegraph, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090821031025/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/6038841/Afghanistan-The-corner-of-Kabul-that-is-forever-England.html , archive-date=2009-08-21

Gallery

Sherpur Cantonment at present

Image:British Cemetery (1 of 1)-2.jpg, Western troops pay their respects Image:British Cemetery (1 of 1)-4.jpg, Memorials inside the cantonment Image:British Cemetery (1 of 1)-8.jpg, Inside the cantonment

Sherpur Cantonment in 1879

File:Afghan-sherpur-assault.jpg, Assault on the Sherpur Cantonment File:Durbar Maidan of Sherpur Cantonment in 1879.jpg, Durbar Maidan in the cantonment File:Bengal Sapper and Miners Bastion, in Sherpur cantonment, Kabul, Second Afghan War, c. 1879.jpg, Bengal Sapper and Miners Bastion in the cantonment

References

Cemeteries in Afghanistan