Landscapes of Remembrance
Funerary landscapes can be divided into eight distinct types: churchyards, denominational burial grounds, cemeteries, crematoria, war and military cemeteries, burial grounds attached to specific institutions, ‘emergency’ mass burial grounds and family mausolea in private grounds.
Churchyards constitute some of our most sensitive historical open spaces and are often of early origin.
The Isle of Wight Gardens Trust has not recorded any Isle of Wight churchyards and no examples of burial grounds attached to churches are included on the Council’s Local List.
Epidemics and other mass death incidents which occurred in towns from the Middle Ages until the Second World War could lead to emergency burial grounds being established.
The public park of Church Litten (LL) in Newport originated as a burial ground dating from 1582 when Newport was hit by the plague.
Municipal cemeteries constitute a distinct category of designed landscapes which reflect the social order of the C19. ‘As an important record of the social history of the area it serves, a cemetery may be said to contain the biography of a community’.
Historic cemeteries also contribute to the overall landscape character of urban areas.
The origins of urban cemeteries date back to the 1820s and 1830s when the need for more burial space in towns and cities to supplement existing churchyards became pressing. Burial Acts in 1852 and 1853 empowered burial boards to establish these new cemeteries.
Large early Victorian cemeteries on the mainland were usually laid out informally in the picturesque style with sweeping drives and serpentine lines of trees. John Claudius Loudon’s book ‘On the Laying Out, Planting and Managing of Cemeteries’ (1843) promoted a more utilitarian layout, often based on a standard grid pattern. Funerary monuments, chapels and lodges all contributed to the overall design and character of cemeteries.
The earliest municipal cemetery on the Island was laid out at Ryde in 1841 but most Island cemeteries were created after the Burial Act of 1853. Typically, these municipal cemeteries have specific areas devoted to Non-Conformist and Roman- Catholic burials
Isle of Wight cemeteries are fairly modest in scale and their designed landscapes are less elaborate than some of the large urban cemeteries on the mainland but amongst the twelve municipal cemeteries which have been recorded by the Isle of Wight Gardens Trust can be found typical Victorian layouts enhanced by planted trees and funerary monuments of many different types as well as lodges and gateways of historic interest.
Five cemeteries are included on the Isle of Wight Council’s Local List (Carisbrooke, Northwood, Ryde, Shanklin and Ventnor). Ryde Cemetery also forms a discrete Character Area within the Ryde Conservation Area).
Friends’ Associations now exist for the cemeteries at Ryde, East Cowes and Northwood (Cowes). All three cemeteries have received Heritage Lottery Fund grants for restoration projects.
In some parts of the country public parks, playing fields and avenues were laid out as ‘living’ war memorials after WWI and WW2. However, the Isle of Wight Gardens Trust has not so far identified or recorded any of these war memorial parks locally.
On the Isle of Wight war memorials are sited within public squares, churchyards and public parks (as at Northwood Park, Cowes).
In 1915 the Imperial (later Commonwealth) War Graves Commission was founded. One of its first tasks was to acquire land abroad and to construct cemeteries and memorials to the Fallen. The Commission created over 12,000 enclaves in the UK for soldiers who died at home of wounds, disease or accident, many attached to pre- existing civilian cemeteries. Of the UK sites, 416 are large enough (that is, with over 40 graves) to have the Cross of Sacrifice designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield.
Parkhurst Military Cemetery at Forest Road, Newport is War Department Property and is associated with the former Albany Barracks. It contains war graves of both world wars and after World War II a Cross of Sacrifice was erected (http://www.findagrave.com).
Memorial stones to military personnel erected by the War Graves Commission can be found within the Island’s municipal cemeteries.
Cremation was legalised in 1884 and an Act of 1902 empowered the construction of crematoria by local authorities, but it was only in the 1930s that crematoria began to be built in larger numbers. The term ‘gardens of rest’ or ‘gardens of remembrance’ has been in use since the 1920s.
The Isle of Wight Joint Crematorium Committee was established in 1953. In 1959 Newport Borough agreed to the construction of the Isle of Wight Crematorium on a site near Whippingham Station. The first cremation took place in 1961.
The Garden of Remembrance at the Crematorium has developed over the years to provide two distinct and contrasting areas; the informally designed flower beds and shrubbery area containing roses, hydrangeas and specimen trees; and the natural woodside area with its bark pathway and meandering stream.
A new trend starting in the late C20 has been the development of woodland, or natural, burial grounds.
Two woodland burial grounds now exist on the Isle of Wight: Springwood, near Newchurch (on a site that was formerly farmland) and Fernhill which is on the site of a former landscape park at Wootton.
There is also a ‘natural burial ground’ at Headon Lea in the West Wight (near the Needles).
Funerary landscapes can be divided into eight distinct types: churchyards, denominational burial grounds, cemeteries, crematoria, war and military cemeteries, burial grounds attached to specific institutions, ‘emergency’ mass burial grounds and family mausolea in private grounds.
Churchyards constitute some of our most sensitive historical open spaces and are often of early origin.
The Isle of Wight Gardens Trust has not recorded any Isle of Wight churchyards and no examples of burial grounds attached to churches are included on the Council’s Local List.
Epidemics and other mass death incidents which occurred in towns from the Middle Ages until the Second World War could lead to emergency burial grounds being established.
The public park of Church Litten (LL) in Newport originated as a burial ground dating from 1582 when Newport was hit by the plague.
Municipal cemeteries constitute a distinct category of designed landscapes which reflect the social order of the C19. ‘As an important record of the social history of the area it serves, a cemetery may be said to contain the biography of a community’.
Historic cemeteries also contribute to the overall landscape character of urban areas.
The origins of urban cemeteries date back to the 1820s and 1830s when the need for more burial space in towns and cities to supplement existing churchyards became pressing. Burial Acts in 1852 and 1853 empowered burial boards to establish these new cemeteries.
Large early Victorian cemeteries on the mainland were usually laid out informally in the picturesque style with sweeping drives and serpentine lines of trees. John Claudius Loudon’s book ‘On the Laying Out, Planting and Managing of Cemeteries’ (1843) promoted a more utilitarian layout, often based on a standard grid pattern. Funerary monuments, chapels and lodges all contributed to the overall design and character of cemeteries.
The earliest municipal cemetery on the Island was laid out at Ryde in 1841 but most Island cemeteries were created after the Burial Act of 1853. Typically, these municipal cemeteries have specific areas devoted to Non-Conformist and Roman- Catholic burials
Isle of Wight cemeteries are fairly modest in scale and their designed landscapes are less elaborate than some of the large urban cemeteries on the mainland but amongst the twelve municipal cemeteries which have been recorded by the Isle of Wight Gardens Trust can be found typical Victorian layouts enhanced by planted trees and funerary monuments of many different types as well as lodges and gateways of historic interest.
Five cemeteries are included on the Isle of Wight Council’s Local List (Carisbrooke, Northwood, Ryde, Shanklin and Ventnor). Ryde Cemetery also forms a discrete Character Area within the Ryde Conservation Area).
Friends’ Associations now exist for the cemeteries at Ryde, East Cowes and Northwood (Cowes). All three cemeteries have received Heritage Lottery Fund grants for restoration projects.
In some parts of the country public parks, playing fields and avenues were laid out as ‘living’ war memorials after WWI and WW2. However, the Isle of Wight Gardens Trust has not so far identified or recorded any of these war memorial parks locally.
On the Isle of Wight war memorials are sited within public squares, churchyards and public parks (as at Northwood Park, Cowes).
In 1915 the Imperial (later Commonwealth) War Graves Commission was founded. One of its first tasks was to acquire land abroad and to construct cemeteries and memorials to the Fallen. The Commission created over 12,000 enclaves in the UK for soldiers who died at home of wounds, disease or accident, many attached to pre- existing civilian cemeteries. Of the UK sites, 416 are large enough (that is, with over 40 graves) to have the Cross of Sacrifice designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield.
Parkhurst Military Cemetery at Forest Road, Newport is War Department Property and is associated with the former Albany Barracks. It contains war graves of both world wars and after World War II a Cross of Sacrifice was erected (http://www.findagrave.com).
Memorial stones to military personnel erected by the War Graves Commission can be found within the Island’s municipal cemeteries.
Cremation was legalised in 1884 and an Act of 1902 empowered the construction of crematoria by local authorities, but it was only in the 1930s that crematoria began to be built in larger numbers. The term ‘gardens of rest’ or ‘gardens of remembrance’ has been in use since the 1920s.
The Isle of Wight Joint Crematorium Committee was established in 1953. In 1959 Newport Borough agreed to the construction of the Isle of Wight Crematorium on a site near Whippingham Station. The first cremation took place in 1961.
The Garden of Remembrance at the Crematorium has developed over the years to provide two distinct and contrasting areas; the informally designed flower beds and shrubbery area containing roses, hydrangeas and specimen trees; and the natural woodside area with its bark pathway and meandering stream.
A new trend starting in the late C20 has been the development of woodland, or natural, burial grounds.
Two woodland burial grounds now exist on the Isle of Wight: Springwood, near Newchurch (on a site that was formerly farmland) and Fernhill which is on the site of a former landscape park at Wootton.
There is also a ‘natural burial ground’ at Headon Lea in the West Wight (near the Needles).