Cemeteries and crematoria in Brighton and Hove

St Nicholas' Church, Brighton

St Andrew's Church, Church Road, Hove

St Leonard's Church, Aldrington

St Peter's Church, West Blatchington

St Helen's Church, Hangleton

St Margaret's Church, Rottingdean

Stanmer Church

St Nicolas Church, Portslade

St Wulfran's Church, Ovingdean

All Saints Church, Patcham

Hanover Chapel Burial Ground

Brighton Friends Meeting House Burial Ground

Former Quaker Burial Ground, Black Rock

Former Jewish Burial Ground, Round Hill

Brighton Extra Mural Cemetery

Woodvale Cemetery

Hove Cemetery

Portslade Cemetery

Bear Road (City) Cemetery

Brighton and Preston Cemetery

Downs Crematorium

Lawn Memorial Cemetery

Meadowview Jewish Cemetery

The Chattri

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Map of Brighton and Hove showing churchyards and chapel burial grounds (blue) and cemeteries (red). Hover over points to see their name.

The English coastal

Until the early 19th century, by which time Brighton was already growing rapidly as it developed from a fishing village into a fashionable seaside resort, all burials took place at churches, chapels or the Jewish community's newly established burial ground. Brighton Extra Mural Company founded the first private cemetery in the town in 1851. A similar situation existed in Hove and its westerly neighbour Portslade, where pressure for burial space around St Andrew's and St Nicolas' parish churches respectively resulted in the establishment of municipal cemeteries there. In the 20th century, as space became scarce and cremation became more socially acceptable, new and extended burial grounds were established and the Woodvale Crematorium, built in 1930, became increasingly important.

Many structures in the cemeteries and graveyards of Brighton and Hove are of significant historical and architectural interest; reflecting this, many have been listed by English Heritage, the public body responsible for the administration of England's historic built environment. Listed structures include individual tombs, burial vaults, cemetery chapels and various structures at the entrances to the city's cemeteries. In many cases, the historic interest of an individual grave is based on the local or wider fame of its occupant.

The 20th-century expansion of Brighton and its neighbour Hove brought several villages, formerly outside the urban area, into the area controlled by the boroughs. Ancient settlements such as Ovingdean, Rottingdean, Stanmer, Patcham and Hangleton each had their own parish church with a long-established graveyard.

History

For hundreds of years in towns and villages across England, it was customary to bury the dead in the churchyard of the

The Public Health Act 1848 sought to improve the sanitary conditions and public health in Britain's growing towns. Edward Cresy, a Government health inspector, was sent to Brighton in 1849 to report on its conditions and recommend actions which would make the town compliant with the Act. He advised that burials around the town's churches and chapels should cease, which would have affected St Nicholas' Church, the Presbyterian Hanover Chapel in North Road and the Quaker Friends Meeting House in Ship Street.^[11] (Although Brighton had 11 Anglican churches by the time, excluding St Nicholas',^[12] none had their own burial grounds.) Cresy's recommendation was enforced from 1 October 1853,^[1] when the Government passed the Burials (Beyond the Metropolis) Act 1853 and prohibited burials around any of Brighton's places of worship.^[11]

Immediately after Cresy published his report, though, a group of public figures in Brighton took action themselves. They included doctor and politician

The Marquess of Bristol owned much of the land surrounding the old farm, and in 1856 he gave the Brighton Extra Mural Company 8 acres (3.2 ha) adjoining the northeast side of the existing cemetery. It was consecrated for Anglican burials on 14 November 1857, and was known from the start as the Bristol Ground.^[11][15] He also helped with the founding of Brighton's second purpose-built cemetery. When the Government prohibited any more burials around St Nicholas' Church in 1853, the Vestry (who were responsible for the administration and running of the parish church) needed land quickly to carry out new burials—in particular of paupers, who became the Vestry's responsibility when they died.^[11] The Vestry asked the Brighton Extra Mural Company to sell the new Extra Mural Cemetery to them, but they were quoted £25,000 (£2,691,000 as of 2024)^[16] and a five-shilling charge (£30 as of 2024)^[16] per pauper burial.^[11] The Vestry considered this unacceptable. In early 1856 they had the chance to buy 30 acres (12 ha) of land opposite the Extra Mural Cemetery, on the east side of Lewes Road, for £7,500 (£746,000 as of 2024),^[16] but the Vestry again refused—despite the recommendations of the newly formed Brighton Burial Board.^[1][11] Then in April 1856,^[1] the Marquess of Bristol and the tenant of the land, Mayor of Brighton William Hallett, gave the Vestry 20 acres (8.1 ha) of land adjoining the south side of the Extra Mural Cemetery. It was run by the Burial Board under the name Brighton Parochial Cemetery, and was designed and consecrated in 1857.^[1][10] It was taken over by Brighton Borough Council in 1902, and is now called Woodvale Cemetery.^[1]

The north ends of the two cemeteries reached as far north as Bear Road, a steep road which was part of Brighton Borough's boundary until 1928.^[17] Immediately north of the road, a third cemetery opened in 1868 on a 31.5-acre (12.7 ha) site. It was known as Brighton Borough Cemetery or Bear Road Cemetery.^[15][18] A fourth large cemetery opened in the same area in 1886. The privately owned Brighton and Preston Cemetery Company Ltd laid out the Brighton and Preston Cemetery on the remaining 30 acres (12 ha) of the former Scabe's Castle Farm land between Hartington Road and the south side of the Brighton Parochial Cemetery.^[15][18]

The villages of

The small churchyard at St Nicolas' Church in Portslade was closed to new burials by 1871, when the Portslade Burial Board was founded. While the board searched for land for a municipal cemetery, the priests in the neighbouring parishes of Hangleton and Aldrington allowed burials of Portslade residents to take place at the parish churches of St Helen and St Leonard respectively.^[24] A second Anglican church, St Andrew's, was built in Portslade in 1864,^[25] and the Burial Board intended for some adjacent land to be turned into a cemetery. The donor of the site refused this, though, and the board had to seek land elsewhere in the parish. Resident John Hooper Smith sold 4 acres (1.6 ha) for £1,000 (£99,000 as of 2024),^[16] and Portslade Cemetery was consecrated on 9 November 1872.^[24] An extension was added in 1896^[24] and fully laid out in 1924–25.^[26] Some land at the south end of the cemetery, alongside Victoria Road, was controversially sold for housing development in 1936 after several months of debate.^[26]

Cremation became more socially acceptable in the 20th century, and in 1930 the first crematorium in Sussex opened in one of the twin chapels at Woodvale Cemetery. It was adapted for this purpose by the addition of a chimney and other structural alterations.^[27] Originally known as the Brighton Borough Crematorium, it is now called the Woodvale Crematorium.^[1] In 1941, another crematorium was opened at the far northeast corner of the Brighton and Preston Cemetery, alongside Bear Road. The Downs Crematorium is privately owned and run.^[15][18]

Brighton's urban area expanded from the late 19th century with a series of boundary extensions, some of which brought surrounding villages and their parish churches into the borough (which was established in 1854).

At their greatest extent, the burial grounds around Brighton's parish church covered three separate sites around Church Street and Dyke Road. The small northern extension laid out in 1824 was superseded by the elaborately planned western extension of 1840, designed by prominent local architect Amon Henry Wilds.^[5] The lavish plan was based on the Oriental style^[5] popular in Brighton since the redesign of the Royal Pavilion in the 1820s.^[33] Complaints over the cost meant that the main feature, a stone pyramid in the centre of the site, was not built, but Wilds did provide an arched entrance and a terrace of 14 Tudor-Gothic stone burial vaults with recessed entrances along the north side.^[1][5][34] They have steps on the east and west sides leading to a walkway across the top of the terrace. There appear to be 14 vaults, but the 14-bay exterior is in fact false: the recessed entrances, with their Tudor-style arched doorways, are blank (with one exception). Separating each bay is a pinnacled buttress. The steps to the east are the more elaborate set: they have stuccoed walls with moulded terracotta panels to the piers. The vaults are built of rubble faced with stucco, and are a Grade II-listed structure—^[35] as is the Classical-style entrance archway fronting Dyke Road. It was erected in 1846, and is built mostly of yellow brick with some stonework. The arch has a keystone and is flanked by Doric pilasters topped by a cornice and entablature.^[36]

Burials no longer take place in any part of St Nicholas' Church grounds. The original graveyard was no longer used after 1853 by order of the Government. It stayed in its mid 19th-century condition for the next century, but became prone to vandalism and increasingly difficult to maintain in the 20th century. Brighton Borough Council decided to move many tombstones and introduce landscaping.

Many prominent Brighton residents and people associated with the resort are buried at St Nicholas' Church, mostly in the original churchyard. The council maintained the most historically important tombs in their original positions when landscaping the churchyard in the mid-20th century.

The ancient churchyard around St Andrew's parish church in Hove has been used since the 16th century or earlier, but it fell out of use in 1883 and has been built over in places. Some historic tombs have been damaged or removed in the process, and hundreds of bodies had to be exhumed and reinterred during one period of building work.^[19]

The churchyard was already nearly full by 1850, when it acquired local fame after influential theologian, sermon writer and well-known preacher Rev. Frederick William Robertson started visiting and walking there. He remarked "I was pleased to hear not a single human soul far or near ... above there were a few dense clouds, edged with light, sailing across a marvellous blue ... I heard nothing but the sea, falling with a most dissonant, heavy, endless clang upon the shore". At the time the area was much more extensive: graves ran beyond the present south wall on the site of Church Road.^[19] The churchyard gained another 3 acres (1.2 ha) in 1858, but even this was filled soon afterwards. Further burials were prohibited from 1883, by which time Hove Cemetery was open. With the churchyard's importance diminished, a controversial plan to reduce its size at the southern end and extend Church Road through it was announced in 1895. Work began in July of that year, and more than 300 bodies were dug up and moved to Hove Cemetery. Many of the gravestones and memorials were destroyed during this work.^[19] The northern section became overgrown and unsafe,^[19] and in 1972 2.5 acres (1.0 ha) were dug up and built over when a new school was built. As before, many gravestones were destroyed, although the family tomb of Charles Brownlow, 2nd Baron Lurgan and four relatives was saved and re-erected in Hove Cemetery.^[53] During the 1980s, a new parish hall was built near the church, and more land was taken from the churchyard.^[53] In 2002, a section alongside the north wall was created for the burial of cremated remains.^[54]

Burials at St Andrew's Church include influential local architect Charles Busby (whose grave has been destroyed), geographer Colonel Sir George Everest (after whom Mount Everest was named), Rear-Admiral Sir John Hindmarsh kh rn—South Australia's first Governor—Admiral George Westphal, who fought at the Battle of Trafalgar as a midshipman, and members of several important local families.^[53] There are also Commonwealth War Graves Commission special memorials to a North Staffordshire Regiment officer of World War I and a Royal Air Force officer of World War II.^[55]

Other parish churches

After St Leonard's Church in Aldrington fell into ruin, its old churchyard may have been bought as private land. It was re-established in 1882 by the incumbent vicar. Local archaeologists have stated that an ancient monastery may have occupied the site, and smugglers' underground passages are rumoured to run beneath the land. Burials include the ashes of actor and cricketer Charles Aubrey Smith and both parents of novelist Ivy Compton-Burnett. Three shipwreck victims and a First World War army lieutenant whose aircraft crashed nearby after a mid-air collision are also buried.^[56]

St Peter's Church at West Blatchington also became derelict before being rebuilt in the 19th century. In 1636, the churchwarden reported that "our churchyard is not well fenced ... [for] Tyme out of mynde, it hath not been used for a buryall place".^[57] The church was reopened in 1891 and the churchyard came back into use, although 140 square yards (120 m²) were given up in 1934 when a road was built.^[57]

St Nicolas' Church at Portslade is described as having "one of the most tranquil and best maintained churchyards in Brighton or Hove."^[68] For such a large and populous parish (Portslade was more important than neighbouring Hove for much of its history),^[30] it covers a small area; bodies appear to have been buried on top of each other in several places, especially near the chancel where the ground rises substantially. In its earliest days the churchyard was fenced rather than walled; the present flint walls apparently date from the 17th century.^[69] Several prominent local families have large and elaborate memorials and vaults: the Georgian-style Buckoll family gravestones near the church porch are "one of the chief glories".^[69]

St Wulfran's Church, Ovingdean—Brighton and Hove's oldest building, in the mostly rural village of Ovingdean—is surrounded by a sloping churchyard on three sides. No trace of the original Saxon church remains,^[70] but a 1,000-year-old yew tree stands among the graves near the porch.^[71] Burials include local inventor Magnus Volk, master builder and Daylight Saving Time pioneer William Willett, and women's rights campaigner and University of Sussex benefactor Helena Normanton. The tombs of the Kemp and Jex-Blake families are also present. Charles Eamer Kempe and Nathaniel Kemp are buried in the Grade II-listed Kemp tomb, and Thomas Read Kemp (founder of Kemp Town) is commemorated.^[72]

Ancient tombs in the extensive churchyard at All Saints Church, Patcham include several for members of the locally influential Scrase family,^[73] who were also associated with St Peter's Church at West Blatchington.^[74] They are Grade II-listed in a joint listing with some unrelated 18th- and 19th-century tombs nearby.^[75]

Hanover Chapel burial ground

Hanover Chapel was founded in 1825 as an Independent place of worship, and was acquired by the Presbyterian Church of England in 1844. It stood on the south side of North Road,^[76] and the high-density slum areas of Durham and Petty France developed around it after Brighton railway station was opened nearby in 1840.^[77] The chapel had a large burial ground on the south side,^[76] which was built on the site of the local barracks hospital.^[78] In 1845, the Brighton Town Commissioners demolished many of the slums and some gardens to make way for Queen's Road, a direct route from the station to the seafront.^[77] The road took land on the west side of the burial ground, although its western boundary wall survives as a raised pavement.^[76]

Brighton Corporation (the successors to the Town Commissioners) took responsibility for many open spaces in the town, including the Hanover Chapel burial ground, after the 1884 Brighton Improvement Act was passed. It was maintained as a graveyard until 1949, when it was redesigned as the Queen's Road Rest Garden; this involved digging up the gravestones and placing them around the walls instead. Since 1989, it has been entered through a gateway in Queen's Road; the Brighthelm Centre and United Reformed Church was built next to the old chapel in 1987.^[76]

The chapel had a crypt, which served as a wartime

Quakers worshipped in Brighton from 1690, when they bought a former malthouse near the site of the present

The community acquired about 4,900 square feet (460 m²)[78] of land at Black Rock—a clifftop area east of Brighton, then in the parish of Rottingdean—in 1855 and established a new graveyard there.^[81] The first burial took place in July of that year. The site was a narrow strip of land alongside Rifle Butt Road. Burials continued until September 1971, by which time 311 men, women and children were interred;^[1] but in 1972, Brighton Corporation (forerunners of the present Brighton and Hove City Council) placed a compulsory purchase order on the land. The Brighton Marina development below the cliffs at Black Rock had been approved, and the site was needed for construction of a link road. The remains of every body were exhumed, names were recorded and stored at Brighton History Centre, and some headstones were retained. The Corporation dug a communal grave at the Lawn Memorial Park cemetery at Woodingdean, reinterred the remains there and laid out the surviving headstones.^[1] New Quaker burials take place in this section of the cemetery.^[1]

Jewish burial grounds, old and new

Brighton had Jewish residents by 1766, and the first

The cemetery has been full for many years and is now closed except for family burials where a tomb already exists. It is locked and in poor condition; many graves are overgrown. The foundation stone commemorating Kemp's gift of the land survives, though.^[1][87] The cemetery chapel and its surrounding walls and gates are Grade II listed buildings. Designed in 1893 by Lainson and Son and built by the Garrett building firm, the chapel is a red-brick octagonal structure in the Queen Anne style, with a tiled turreted roof and corbel-topped piers at each corner, a pedimented entrance and arched windows set below recessed panels.^[85][88] The walls, stucco-faced gate piers and wrought iron fences surrounding the burial ground were built around the same time as the chapel.^[89]

Brighton and Hove have had many prominent Jewish citizens,

The cemetery contains the World War I war grave of Lieutenant Arthur Sampson Marks of the Royal Sussex Regiment (died 1918).^[96]

The old cemetery fell out of use in the early 20th century.^[18] In 1919, 3.5 acres (1.4 ha) of the Bear Road (City) Cemetery was walled off and enclosed as a new burial ground for Jews. The Meadowview Jewish Cemetery,^[1] sometimes known as the Old Hebrew Burial Ground^[18] (reflecting the fact it was extended later), is reached from a path off Bevendean Road. Some of the older tombs are topped with black marble urns.^[95] The burial ground was extended in 1978 by the addition of a 1.5-acre (0.61 ha) section to the northeast.^[1][95] and there is a chapel and a Holocaust memorial, which has been described as "impressive and moving".^[1] Brighton and Hove City Council own and manage the 1.5-acre (0.61 ha) cemetery extension, which remains open for new burials. Burial rights are held by the Brighton and Hove Hebrew Congregation,^[1][3] which owns the Middle Street Synagogue and another at New Church Road in Hove.^[97] This cemetery has four World War II Commonwealth war graves.^[98]

Cemeteries and crematoria

Brighton Extra Mural Cemetery

The Extra Mural Cemetery occupies "one of the most delightful spots in the whole of Brighton": a sheltered, gently sloping, well wooded area of downland between two much steeper hills.^[13] It is still "one of the most pleasant and quiet places in Brighton in which to take a walk", and this quality was noticed as early as 1880, when J.G. Bishop published a walking guide called Strolls in the Brighton Extra Mural Cemetery.^[2][15] The 16.5-acre (6.7 ha) site is now maintained by Brighton and Hove City Council, and although burials can no longer be made, the surviving cemetery chapel is still available for funeral services.^[3] The council and its predecessors have maintained the cemetery and its tombs since 1956, landscaping the grounds, ensuring structural safety and preserving the character of the area. In contrast to many municipal cemeteries in England, it is considered to be "an object lesson in how [a cemetery] should be treated".^[2] The Brighton Extra Mural Company had been wound up in the 1950s, and its directors asked the council to take responsibility for a perpetual fund it kept for maintenance and improvement. The council took ownership of the cemetery and decided to administer it together with the neighbouring Woodvale Cemetery and Crematorium.^[2]

Amon Henry Wilds, one of the founders of the Extra Mural Cemetery Company, designed the landscaping and pathways through the cemetery. He is also credited with designing and building the two chapels, of which only one survives;^[2][15][99] but by the time the cemetery opened in 1851 Wilds had effectively finished his architectural career (he died in 1857),^[100] and the Gothic Revival style of the chapels was uncharacteristic of his standard Classical and Greek Revival works.^[2]

The Anglican chapel survives in the northern part of the cemetery; it is an expansive building of

There have been about 145,000 funerals at the cemetery since burials began in 1851.^[15] It opened at the height of the Victorian era, when people "made a cult of death" and favoured large funerals and substantial, ornate tombs;^[2] and many famous and important Brightonians were buried there.^[15] Six tombs are listed by English Heritage for their architectural and historical interest. A single listing covers three tombs standing next to each other in the northwest part of the cemetery. One, in the Greek Revival style, contains an unknown interment. A large Gothic Revival Portland stone and marble mausoleum with granite columns and carved spandrels, resembling a dovecote, holds the remains of John Collingwood, who died in 1861. Rev. Frederick William Robertson, the acclaimed theologian and preacher who held the perpetual curacy of Brighton's Holy Trinity Church and enjoyed walking in the churchyard at Hove, was buried in the third tomb when he died aged 37 in 1853. His tomb is an Egyptian-style pylon with bronze motifs donated by the congregation at Holy Trinity Church and the Brighton Mechanics Institution, which he founded.^[102][103] Further to the east, the Baldwin family memorial, also Grade II-listed, dates from the 1930s. John Leopold Denman, a prolific local architect who specialised in commercial buildings,^[104] executed the curious cruciform design with a domed top and stone walls. It has a cornice interrupted by rounded mouldings, an arched entrance flanked by columns with decorative capitals and a recessed bronze door.^[105][106] The Ford family's Gothic Revival mausoleum, another Grade II-listed structure, dates from 1889 and resembles a columbarium with its steep gabled roof and multiple openings. It is of stone with pink granite columns and a base surrounded with iron railings.^[106][107] Members of another local family, the Rays, are buried in "the grandest memorial in the cemetery"—a giant mausoleum which is nearly attached to the chapel.^[108] It is a granite and flint structure built into the hill behind, with an arched entrance, carved panels, buttresses, Classical-style decorations and hood moulds. There is space for 42 burials.^[108][109]

Other burials include Rev.

The cemetery contains the war graves of 39 Commonwealth service personnel, 31 from World War I and 8 from World War II.^[120] Also buried here is a World War I Victoria Cross winner, Captain George Burdon McKean (1888-1926).^[121]

Woodvale Cemetery and Crematorium

Woodvale Cemetery is approached from Lewes Road along a long, sloping, tree-lined avenue. The original north and south lodges halfway along, built for the cemetery gardeners in the 19th century, are now the Council's Bereavement Services offices and staff accommodation respectively.^[115] The north lodge, rising to two storeys unlike its single-storey counterpart,^[122] is Grade II-listed;^[123] both are flint-built Gothic Revival structures.^[115] The cemetery is set in a shallow valley with many ancient trees and large areas of landscaped shrubbery and flowers.^[27] Access from the approach avenue into the cemetery is along three parallel drives, laid out in the 1850s and 1860s, which end at the top of the valley by the chapels.^[122] These paired Gothic Revival structures, connected by a tower with a spire, were built in 1857^[27] and are jointly listed at Grade II. The walls are of flint with some sandstone; the steeply pitched chapel roofs have slate tiles. The north chapel was consecrated for Anglican use, while the south was used for Nonconformist services. The tower rises from a central carriage arch with an ogee-shaped hood mould above the pointed arch. The lancet windows have intricate tracery. The tower is buttressed and rises in three stages to a belfry and a broach spire.^[124]

The largest and most distinctive monument—described as "the most beautiful tomb in either [Extra Mural or Woodvale] cemetery"—is the Grade II-listed Ginnett family tomb.^[3][125] John Frederick Ginnett was a circus proprietor who owned a popular circus and theatre at Park Crescent in the Round Hill area of Brighton.^[126] The tall oval tomb of granite, marble and Portland stone has Classical-style embellishments (friezework, Ionic pilasters and rustication) and is topped by a nearly full-size pony of marble.^{[125][126][127]} The long-serving father-and-son Vicars of Brighton, Rev. Henry Michell Wagner and Rev. Arthur Douglas Wagner, and buried near the middle pathway in a grave topped by a red marble cross. During their service in Brighton, which spanned most of the 19th century, 15 new Anglican churches were built; they founded and endowed six themselves, and paid for houses and education for poor people. Their strongly Anglo-Catholic views aroused controversy locally and nationally, and they were frequently attacked verbally and physically.^[128] Nearby, members of the Nye Chart family, who made Brighton's Theatre Royal one of England's most important theatres, are interred in a tomb with a gabled headstone.^[129] The Clarke family tomb, standing on a knoll near the chapels, commemorates several Clarkes who were influential in 19th-century Brighton. Somers Clarke senior was a founder of Brighton's longest established firm of solicitors and a churchwarden at St Nicholas' Church for 62 years; and his son George Somers Clarke, an Egyptologist and architect, designed or made extensions to local churches such as Holy Trinity, St Martin's, St Peter's and St Nicholas'.^[130] The 1st Marquess of Bristol, who gave the land for the Woodvale Cemetery, was originally buried in the cruciform Gothic Revival tomb which still bears his name, but his body was later taken to St Mary's Church, Ickworth—the church closest to Ickworth House, where the Marquesses are traditionally buried. Cremated remains are now stored in the gable-topped mausoleum.^[131] It stands near the Bristol Ground, originally a pauper burial area within the Extra Mural Cemetery but now part of the Woodvale grounds: it has become a memorial garden attached to the crematorium.^[18]

The crematorium, inaugurated in 1930, was built behind the Nonconformist chapel and has an octagonal chimney. The materials are the same as those of the chapels.

Renovation work was scheduled for April 2013 at the crematorium. New cremators were to be installed with the ability to retain and recycle waste heat, and the chapels were due to be redecorated. The council said about £1.5 million would be spent but savings of £42,000 per year would arise.^[138]

Hove Cemetery

A deal to buy the land for what became the first section of Hove Cemetery, south of Old Shoreham Road, was signed in 1878, but work could not start until late 1879 because of a dispute with the Dyke Railway Company.^[20] Their branch line to Devil's Dyke formed the eastern boundary of the site,^[139] and ownership and other legal rights had to be confirmed with the Hove Commissioners and the Aldrington Estate.^[20] The two cemetery chapels were designed early in 1880 by Hove Commissioners Surveyor E.B. Ellice Clark; the design was approved by the Bishop of Chichester in April 1880 except for a proposed tower, which was replaced by a cheaper spire. The paired chapels are linked by a central archway which is topped with the thin spire; both are 36 by 18 feet (11.0 m × 5.5 m) and have apsidal ends. Exterior flintwork hides internal walls of custom-made bricks from Chelmsford. One chapel was consecrated for Anglican use. James Longley and Company of Crawley was the building contractor. Another builder, J. Marshall, won the contract for the superintendent's lodge house at the entrance and the surrounding flint and brick walls.^[21] After much debate about where to extend the cemetery, Hove Council bought more than 20 acres (8.1 ha) north of Old Shoreham Road from the Sackville estate in 1923. They paid £6,450 for the land.^[22]

The first person buried was Frederick Tooth on 15 January 1882. A timber merchant by trade, he was also a Hove Commissioner and a trustee of

Now owned and operated by Brighton and Hove City Council, this 7-acre (2.8 ha) cemetery lies alongside the

Compared to the Extra Mural and Woodvale cemeteries, the terrain is flat and open, with little tree cover.[18] A woodland burial area, in which only biodegradable coffins are allowed, was created in 1994.^[15]

Brighton and Preston (aka Downs) Cemetery

This cemetery occupies an L-shaped area of relatively flat, open land south of Woodvale Cemetery. Access is off Hartington Road,

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission, who list this as the Brighton (Downs) Cemetery, maintain the graves of 118 Commonwealth service personnel, from both World Wars, which are dispersed throughout the cemetery.^[151]

Downs Crematorium

Privately run by Dignity Funerals Ltd, this crematorium adjoins the north end of the Brighton and Preston Cemetery, from which it has direct access. The building was designed by local architect John Leopold Denman.^[152] One of the first cremations to take place after it opened in 1941 was that of Virginia Woolf, who committed suicide at nearby Rodmell.^[15][18] Actor Sir George Robey, who died at Saltdean, was cremated here following his death in 1954.^[153]

A Screen Wall memorial in the Garden of Rest, erected by the

The Lawn Memorial Cemetery is now Brighton's main site for new burials. It was opened on 1 January 1963 on a 9.5-acre (3.8 ha) stretch of farmland on Warren Farm, a stretch of downland south of Warren Road on the approach to the suburb of Woodingdean,^[1] and now covers 36.5 acres (14.8 ha).^[3] There are no chapels, but those at Woodvale Cemetery can be used instead. Quaker and Muslim sections have been laid out in the cemetery. No upright gravestones are permitted: only "lawn-style" burials with flat memorial tablets are available.^[3] The 311 bodies of Quakers exhumed from the former burial ground on Rifle Butt Road at Black Rock in 1972 were reburied on land at this cemetery, which is also called the Lawn Memorial Park.^[1] A woodland burial area was created in 2010.^[15] The "tranquil" sloping site is surrounded by trees and has views to the English Channel.^[95]

The Chattri

Hundreds of Indian soldiers who fought for the Allied Powers during World War I were brought to Brighton to be treated for combat injuries. Most recovered, but 74 died. The 21 deceased Muslim soldiers were buried at the Horsell Common, near the Shah Jahan Mosque in Woking, Surrey, in accordance with Islamic tradition (to be later reinterred at Brookwood Military Cemetery in 1968); but the 53 Hindu and Sikh soldiers who died were cremated on a ghat (funeral pyre) on a remote site on the South Downs above Brighton. Samuel Swinton Jacob and Indian architect E.C. Henriques designed a marble, stone and granite war memorial—the Chattri—which stands on the cremation site.^[155] The domed octagonal structure is now Grade II-listed^[156] and was dedicated on 1 February 1921.^[157] The names of the cremated dead are not listed on the Chattri memorial, but were belatedly listed on the Patcham Down Indian Forces' Cremation Memorial, erected nearby in 2010 by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.^[158]

Victoria Cross holders

Six holders of the Victoria Cross are buried in the city's council-owned cemeteries.

Administration

Brighton and Hove City Council owns and operates the Hove, Portslade, Woodvale, City (Bear Road), Extra Mural and Lawn Memorial Cemeteries, the new Jewish burial ground, and the Woodvale Crematorium.^[3] All are open to the public every day of the year; opening hours vary between summer and winter.^[4] The Brighton and Preston Cemetery and the Downs Crematorium are privately owned and run by Dignity Funerals Ltd.^[4]

The council's Bereavement Services division is based at Woodvale Lodge,^[4] one of two entrance lodges on the approach road to the Woodvale Cemetery. Also on this approach road is the Brighton and Hove City Mortuary. In cases where a person has died suddenly, violently or in an unexplained way, the city coroner's support staff transfer the body to this building. Mortuary staff and the city coroner then prepare and examine it.^[165] The coroner's office is at Woodvale Lodge; support staff operate from Brighton's main police station^[166] in the Carlton Hill area of the city.^[167] Inquests are normally held at Woodvale Lodge, but to help with social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic other venues such as the Sussex County Cricket Ground in Hove were used as well.^[168]

As of 2012, Brighton and Hove City Council charged £377 for a weekday funeral, £530 for one on a Saturday and £647 for a Sunday or Bank Holiday service. Cremation services on weekdays cost £373. A plot at the Lawn Memorial Cemetery cost £292; a conventional grave was £377. Plans to increase these prices were announced in January 2012.^[169]

See also

• Buildings and architecture of Brighton and Hove
• List of places of worship in Brighton and Hove
• Media related to Cemeteries and crematoria in Brighton and Hove at Wikimedia Commons

References

Notes