Everest's Grave

All Saints Church on The Drive in Hove contains the grave of Sir George Everest, the Surveyor General of India who is responsible for the primary triangulation survey that measured the height of the Himalayan peaks. He retired to England in the 1840s and spent his later years in Hove, dying in 1866. His grave in the churchyard is unmarked by anything particularly grand — a modest Victorian headstone in a row of similar stones.

The connection between a seaside church in Hove and the world's highest mountain is the kind of detail that makes English churches worth investigating. The church itself, All Saints, is a fine example of late Victorian Gothic architecture, worth a look inside.

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George Everest never wanted his name on the mountain — he argued that his name was hard for local Indian surveyors to pronounce and that the peak should keep its local name, Chomolungma. He was overruled, and the mountain was named for him in 1865, fifteen years after he retired and six years before his death in London.

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