Newbury Old Cemetery

[Alansworld]

As part of English Heritage's Open Access weekend, the old cemetery in Newbury, known as Newtown Road Cemetery was (sort of) thrown open to visitors.

In fact it was guided tours that were on offer. The cemetery has been closed to the general public for a number of years on H&S grounds, which caused quite a bit of offence and dissent in town, and I had numerous discussions about the closure with the council by email when I was running my graves website, ukgraves.info, a while ago. However, nature, as if to prove a point, delivered an enormous cedar bough to the ground only three weeks ago, which I'm sure gave the council some inner satisfaction, endorsing their closure.

So off we went, in a group of about a dozen, with three elderlies leading the way, pointing out the sites. It reminded me of school - you weren't allowed to tarry, and one of them shoved me in the back, urging me to keep up, just once too often, whereupon I felt I just had to tell her to stop bloody well shoving me about - I wasn't about to nick a skelington, just photons.

As Victorian cemeteries go it's really nice. Half is consecrated, the other isn't. One end of the consecrated half is bare of gravestones, and we were told that thousands of paupers lay beneath. I saw a feature I've never before seen in cemeteries, which we'll get to below.

So a handful of my 80-odd pics, Canon 5D, 17-40:

1: Just a general view:

2: Despite H&S nowadays, they've left these spikes in place - a feature so often deleted from graveyards:

3: I just liked this pic:

4: A very famous business in Newbury is the House of Toomer, an ironmongers which has been in the town since time immemorial. We once bought a house off an old locksmith who had worked there all his life. Fittingly, the family vault is mostly iron:

5: Toomer again. It had been though that the plate on the ground was a vault entrance (see below) but then they realised it belonged on top of the main section:

6: That bit:

7: Which leads me onto the graveyard feature I'd never seen before:

8: Another:

9: Again:

10: The previous pic is the Hopson family vault. Another famous Newbury business is the Camp Hopson department store, which has also been in town for about a million years

11: Hopsons:

12: Another vault:

13: Some extreme sandstone delamination:

14: Apparently a strimmer person not long ago fell through into a vault and found himself face to face with a skull, through the small glass window Victorians often put in the side of their coffins. Given that, one of the elderlies assured us that there was therefore no reason why this exhibit shouldn't be of human origin:

15: I'll leave you with some early fungi. One of the benefits of being in a closed off environment is that things like this don't get trodden on:

Alan

 

[night crawler]

Recon that place deserves a good look round (over the wall) Don't think I'd take too kindly to some old fart pushing me along either may be they were worried the graveyard was looking for them. Nice report.

 

[Alansworld]

Thanks Mr Crawler.

Trouble is, while there are walls along three sides, the front, along the main(ish) road is only cast iron fencing, so explorers would be highly visible. Add to that The Lodge, along the middle of the front fence, is inhabited, and you'd be visible from it - though I understand it's a council house!

A

 

[RichardH]

You were assaulted by an old lady? Sounds a bit Monty Python.

Vaults are very common, and usually nothing more than a brick or stone-lined hole. it's unusual to see the entrance signposted so clearly, though. Most unusual.

I would observe that the cedar would not have shed a bough had it been properly maintained by those whose job it is to properly maintain it, although my experience of local authorities is that as a body corporate they are not particularly logical or rational. It's quite strange... perfectly sane individuals go to work in such places and come over all queer.

I would wager fiddypee that the bone is a cattle bone, beloved of my hounds, which may be purchased from all reputable pet stores for the knock-down price of £1.29.

Very interesting to see the small marker stones, bearing only initials and dates. Probably either paupers (although unlikely if there was a burial area set aside for such), or memorials for stillborns or infants. It was common practice right up until just after WWII for stillborns and infants to be buried in any conveniently open grave: my grandparents buried their first child (died age 6 months) in such fashion.

Cracking set of photos!

 

[night crawler]

Now that could be what I noticed a church I visited earlyer this year, the headstones had smaller ones set behind.

 

[Foxylady]

Ooh, I like. Some wonderful remains...um, not literally though. Yup, cattle bone was what I thought too as there's no human bone anything like that.
Nice one, Alan.

 

[RedDave]

Can't see how it's so perilous, but Health & Safety is a common excuse put forward when there's some entirely unrelated reason for not permitting something. It looks no worse than Kensal Green Cemetery.

Those fungi are parasol mushrooms (Lepiota procera) and are quite tasty. I still wouldn't eat those particular specimens, as (and I'm going to sound like Flann O'Brien's de Selby here) they undoubtedly contain molecules from dead people.

Foraging for fungi is, like urban exploration, very dangerous if you don't know what you're doing.

 

[RichardH]

I still wouldn't eat those particular specimens, as (and I'm going to sound like Flann O'Brien's de Selby here) they undoubtedly contain molecules from dead people.

Nutritionally-enhanced!

 

[Alansworld]

Thanks to all for looking and for the comments.

As cemeteries go, I'd put this one on the safer side. Indeed Kensal and Brookwod, to name but two, are much less safe for the stroller. Newbury's been closed for 10 years now. I understood one of the concerns was the chapel and its roof, however, it looked fine to me on Saturday.

Eating wild mushrooms - hmmm, not for me. Containing human molecules, sure why not? If the stats are to be believed I just breathed one of Hitler's exhaled molecules anyway.

A

 

[hydealfred]

Good report AW. Some good history too. I worked in Newbury for 8 years and used to get keys cut at Toomers.

 

[its my destiny]

very nice report and some amazing photos loved the history

 

[Zotez]

Very nice only just noticed this, would love to take a look and only local, is it completely closed off to the public?

 

[Alansworld]

Zotez: yup, closed. Bloody H&S. You can though get a visit booked via the council I understand, but it has to be escorted. I visited during the English Heritage open weekend, when tons of places were opened up.

A