A little bit of cemetery history

A little piece the history of this very well admired place of rest. As I have said earlier, we – a very small team of men and women – do put in that extra bit in ensuring the total area has a fine cared for look.

I hold all the registers of the graves from the day it was first opened as 'non-denominational grounds In the 19th century. The first grave was dug in 1874. You can see the page from the burial register that beautifully shows the very first incumbent – one Hannah Sandells, an independent widow of Audlem.

Note the superb copperplate writing, presumably with a very rudimentary pen nib. Today I cannot continue that writing but in do my best.

A note. The cost of reservation of a plot is £450 and a goodly number of residents within the area covered by the cemetery (the ecclesiastical boundary of Audlem) have planned well ahead in making their choice. Sound thinking when one considers that the cost for that very first grave was £1.7s.6p!

Ralph Warburton
Clerk/Manager

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