Some corner of a foreign field forever England.....

Rupert Brooke's immortal words imagined his own death on the World War 1 battlefields of France, but high up in the mountains north of Mexico City there is another corner which is forever England....

This is the English cemetery established in 1851, on top of the hill overlooking Real de Monte in a beautiful pine forest, to house the graves of the Cornish tin miners who came out from England to work the tin and silver mines for a British mining company in the 19th century. The site is incredibly tranquil with the scent of pine trees wafting in the breeze, a scattering of pine cones on the ground, and both butterflies and birds enjoying the peace and quiet..

It could indeed be any English country churchyard with its smattering of English names such as Brown, Pratt, Carter, Phillips, Dodd, Collins and Waters as well as the more distinctive Cornish names from Pengelly and Polcase to Trevethan and Trelease. Most seemed to live to a ripe old age although there were also tragic tales of accidents in the mines...

William Sobey died in an accident in the Santa Gertrudis mine just before his 17th birthday and William Stoneman was another casualty at the age of 26. Place names from Cornwall also abound on the headstones from Camborn to Saint Agnes to Bolenowe....

There are 750 graves in total and all face England except for one awkward character whose dying wish was to be buried NOT facing the homeland, thus the grave of Richard Bell ,the clown, is the only one to lie crossways...

Be equally awkward, if like me after a 25 minute climb uphill from Real de Monte, you find the gates locked. I knocked on every door in the vicinity until I found the lady with the keys to let me in, and make sure she shows you the plan she has on her wall of all the names and corresponding graves...

If like me you find these tiny forgotten corners of history fascinating, then be sure to read an enchanting fictional representation of this slice of history in Anita Desai's novella "The Zig-Zag Way", and if you are wondering what the English left behind in this part of Mexico, the answer is simple - Cornish pasties and football!! Apparently the first game of football on Mexican soil took place in a field near this cemetery in the 19th Century - maybe this was also the origin of that well know terrace chant "Who ate all the pies!!" and very pertinent on the eve of the World Cup warm-up friendly Mexico v England. For more glimpses around the globe this week check out the My World Tuesday postings.... More postings on Real de Monte and Pachuca and this fascinating corner of Mexico's mining industry to follow shortly...