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"IN LOOKING
TO THE FUTURE, LET US NOT FORGET OUR PAST"
Arnos
Vale Cemetery is located between the A37, Wells Road, and the
A4, Bath Road, in Bristol. The main vehicular entrance is from
Bath Road, although there is pedestrian access from Wells Road
via Cemetery Road. Arnos Vale is well sign-posted and there is
a frequent bus service from the city centre and Temple Meads
Railway Station. The bus stop is at the main gates.
The question is
often asked "Where did Arnos Vale Cemetery start?". In the
early part of the 1800s, nationwide outbreaks of cholera made
burial in local churchyards a risky business. Pollution of the
local water supplies became widespread, and the relatively small
churchyards quickly began to fill up because of population
increases and the frequently
fatal dangers to health increased the demand for burial ground.
Also, particularly in this country, the practice of moving
mortal remains from churchyards after an appropriate period of
interment - usually to the charnel houses - sat very uneasily on
the shoulders of the Church and its belief in the resurrection.
Therefore, at the beginning of the 19th Century, many large
towns and cities saw the establishment of large cemeteries by
joint stock companies which, as well as solving the health
problem, recognised an opportunity to realise profit on their
investment! One such cemetery was Arnos Vale, and in 1837 a
private Act of Parliament established the Bristol General
Cemetery Company which controlled Arnos Vale for many years.
When, in the 1850s
the idea of burial for profit was frowned upon by the general
public, and municipal authorities (i.e. the local councils) began
to set up their own cemeteries, here the Bristol General
Cemetery Company wielded sufficient influence and power to
prevent any changes in the status quo. When the Health in Towns
Act of 1855 closed the old City churchyards, Arnos Vale was the
only place of burial in Bristol until the City Council opened Greenbank Cemetery in 1871,
initially for the out parish of St. Philip. Readers of this note will not,
therefore, be surprised to learn that Sir John Kerle Haberfield,
six times mayor of Bristol, was also one of the original
controlling shareholders in the company and in fact his mortal
remains lie within Arnos Vale.
The site of the
Cemetery was, previously, a rather grand Georgian estate
complete with stately house which has long since disappeared.
At one time it was planned to build Bristol Zoo on the site.
However, the Zoo was finally located in Clifton and the
developers of the day chose the site for their Cemetery.
Arnos Vale Cemetery
was designed by a group of local architects in the style of a
Greek Necropolis, using trees and plants noted in classical
legend. Situated on a steep hillside, similar to a Greek
amphitheatre, it was planned as an Arcadian landscape. Its
terraces were not only visually attractive, but significantly
innovative. The 45-acres site today is of considerable
ecological importance, having progressed from mediaeval
countryside through Georgian estate to Victorian Cemetery
without the use of chemical pesticides or insecticides in any
significant amounts. There is very little urban land in the
British Isles which can match that claim.
There are four fine
buildings within the Cemetery - two Entrance Lodges (East and
West) and two Mortuary Chapels (Anglican and Non-conformist).
All four buildings - now listed Grade II* - were designed by
Charles Underwood and built using the finest materials and
craftsmen that could be obtained. Apparently no expense was
spared, and thank goodness! It is considered that had it not
been for their high quality, the buildings in Arnos Vale
Cemetery may well have fallen into an even greater state of
dereliction, given their lack of maintenance and attention over
the last two decades or the 20th century.
The East and West
Lodges, Doric in style, were designed to be working buildings
and were home for many years to the Cemetery Superintendant and
his family, and at one time, we believe, to a member of the
clergy. They were linked by a tunnel running under the main
drive-in area between them.
The Non-conformist
Chapel is in the Ionic style, more graceful and elegant than the
Lodges but still with sufficient moral simplicity to satisfy the
religious dissenters. The Anglican Chapel is the grandest
building of all, designed in the Corinthian order. It it set at
the crest of two inclines giving it even greater majestic
proportions with its stunning bell tower. It is not at all
difficult to imagine a full-scale Victorian funeral procession
following the horse-drawn carriages, with the bell tolling.
All through the
reign of Queen Victoria and King Edward VII, residents in the
City of Bristol and around it continued to bury their dead in
Arnos Vale Cemetery. The names of many then prominent families
appear on elaborate memorials. Members of the families of W D &
H O Wills and E S & A Robinson provided the generations of
Bristol with much needed employment in their heydays. Great
social reformers such as George Muller, Mary Carpenter and Raja
Rammohun Roy rest in the Arcadian Garden area. Among the
'ordinary' citizens resting nearby are survivors of the Charge
of the Light Brigade, and a police officer murdered in Old
Market whilst trying to intervene over the ill-treatment of a
donkey. At one time it was thought that Mary Baker, alias the
infamous "Princess Caraboo", might be buried in Arnos Vale,
although her last resting place has now been established in
Hebron Churchyard, another Bristol cemetery at risk.
Even further down
the rigid Victorian social scale are the unmarked mounds of the
common graves of the poor, and the flat grave markers of the
guinea graves of those whose friends and relations had managed
to collect the required twenty-one shillings and thus avoid a
pauper's burial.
The 1891 Act of
Parliament incorporated a further area, previously used as
allotments, into Arnos Vale Cemetery. It is in this flat area
to the south of the Cemetery that many of the working classes in
Bristol were buried, particularly railway workers and their
families from Totterdown and Pylle Hill.
As the years rolled
by, Arnos Vale Cemetery started to fill up and the income from
burials dwindled. In 1928 the Bristol Crematorium was opened at
Arnos Vale, using the crypt of the Non-conformist Chapel to
house part of it, and further "complementary" buildings were
added around it in the 1950s. It was, in its day, a state of
the art installation, and the first Crematorium in the West of
England. Subsequently municipal crematoria were also opened in
Bristol, and a private crematorium has also been opened in South
Gloucestershire, to the north-east of Bristol, resulting a
situation of over-capacity.
In the late 1980s,
Arnos Vale, together with other Victorian cemeteries, had
reached a critical situation. As they filled up, so the income
of these privately owned cemeteries dwindled. Less money was
available to pay staff, and new systems of rating reduced
revenue available for maintenance. Changes in social outlook
led to vandalism and indifference. The early Acts of
Incorporation state that it is not the duty of the cemetery
companies to care for individual graves and their memorials.
There are fewer descendants left to care for graves, and in any
case, sadly this became no longer a matter of any consequence to
many. These cemeteries, including Arnos Vale, are in a
condition of gross neglect. Many of the once-splendid memorials
are fallen and destroyed. Wind-born seeds of Ash and Sycamore
grow into saplings, slowly spreading into grassed areas, and
bramble, bindweed and knotweed now close the paths once walked
by visitors to their family graves. In the later years of
private ownership, maintenance of the burial grounds was mostly
concentrated into a small "presentation area" around the
Non-conformist Chapel (used as the Cremation Chapel) and the
Gardens of Rest which continued to receive scattered cremated
remains.
In 1987, alarmed by
a press report that the private owner of Arnos Vale Cemetery had
announced aspirations to clear and commercially develop a large
section of the Cemetery, a group of concerned local people came
together to form the Association for the Preservation of Arnos
Vale Cemetery, known as "APAC" and later changing its name to
Friends of Arnos Vale Cemetery. They campaigned continuously to
secure a safe future for Arnos Vale and pressed the owner to
allow them to carry out voluntary remedial work to bring about
some improvement. Their offers of help were never accepted.
In 1998 Arnos Vale
Cemetery reached crisis point when, on the loss of their
cremation licence, the private owners announced they were
closing the Cemetery and locking the gates. In the event,
bowing to public pressure, the office was closed down, but the
gates were left unlocked. It fell to the lot of a few dedicated
volunteers to open and close the gates on a daily basis, a vital
task which they are still performing.
In April 2001,
convinced by the high and continuing level of public pressure,
the Bristol City Council made a Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO), after
the failure of negotiations with the private owner to buy the
Cemetery. As expected, the owners' companies lodged an
objection, thereby necessitating a Public Inquiry which took
place in May 2002. Mid way through the Inquiry they withdrew
their objections to the CPO, bringing the Inquiry to a sudden
close. In October of the same year the CPO was finally
confirmed by the First Secretary of State. Incredibly the
owners still had a route of appeal by Judicial Review and at the
end of the year their companies applied to the High Court for
leave to challenge the confirmation of the CPO. The hearing
took place on 2 April 2003 at the Royal Courts of Justice in
London and the challenge was dismissed, allowing the Order to go
forward unimpugned. The legal processes of the CPO being
subsequently completed, the ownership of Arnos Vale Cemetery
passed into the hands of the City Council on 7 August 2003 - out
of private ownership for the first time in its existence.
One matter remains
to be resolved and that is to secure ownership of the Burial and
Cremation Records. In spite of vigorous campaigning by the
Friends and Trust, these records while safely stored and
maintained are not available for viewing by the public and are
currently subject to ongoing negotiations between Bristol City
Council and the ex-owner of the Cemetery. It is hoped that
these negotiations will be speedily concluded.
There is however
some good news regarding other cemetery records. With the
generous assistance of Northcliffe Newspapers, who own the
Bristol Evening Post, the Books of Remembrance have been
acquired and are now on display at the cemetery (to view please
see opening times)
In the meantime, the
Arnos Vale Cemetery Trust had been set up and was awarded
charitable status. On 7 August 2003 the City Council licensed
the Trust exclusively to manage Arnos Vale Cemetery.
So what of the
future of Arnos Vale Cemetery? Alternative ownership has
secured it against private commercial development. An Endowment Fund has already been set up to be
managed by the Greater Bristol Foundation, in order to provide
ongoing revenue to maintain the Cemetery after the restoration
has been carried out. After much hard work by members of
the Trust and their consultants under the guidance of Richard
Smith, a bid for Lottery Funding was made in 2005. In
December of that year the excellent news was received that
£4.8million had been awarded from the Heritage Lottery
Fund towards the restoration of the cemetery buildings and
grounds. This sum however only represents approximately 75% of the
required costs, a further £600,000 has to be raised through fund
raising projects organised by the Trust and Friends. In
addition match funding, using hours worked by the Friends, can
be credited to the overall project cost.
A programme for the
restoration and regeneration of the site has now been
established under the project management of Bristol City
Council. This includes the four main buildings,
landscaping, circulation areas and some principal monuments.
One building has already been restored with the
backing of English Heritage and Bristol City Council, the West Lodge
has been used since 2006 as a visitors centre, with the books of remembrance on
display. There is also an office for the Trust Management
and room for both Trust and Friends committee meetings.
A second phase was
completed in the Spring of 2007 with tree works to remove the
self seeded sycamore and ash with other undergrowth generally to
form widened access corridors based on the original drives and
footpaths. This is primarily to allow light at ground
level and to encourage diversity of plants and shrubs.
A number of
appropriate activities are being planned, there are already guided tours
for visitors, and an Education Centre is planned with an Officer
being funded from HLF funds. There is a strong need for
premises locally for other community groups' use at an
affordable price, and the mortuary chapels will be available
once again for funeral services. The crematorium will not
re-open, but services will be offered at Arnos Vale with
subsequent cremation taking place at either South Bristol or
Canford. All existing burial rights will be honoured by the
Trust, which means that a full burial service in an existing
grave will be possible. In addition, the two Gardens of Rest
will be available to accept scattering of cremated remains, and
CR interments in existing graves (subject to proof of ownership)
will also be possible. After the complications of private
ownership, the Trust will always strive to offer the best
possible service to the bereaved, enabling them to carry out the
wishes of their loved ones.
Arnos Vale will once
again welcome visitors who wish to visit a place of quiet
reflection and rest and somewhere to remember those no longer
with us. The parts of the Cemetery which had ceased to be
tended regularly rapidly became a haven for wild life. The
vegetation varies from woodland to open meadow and is the
breeding habitat of many species of birds and fauna. In the
Winter it offers refuge to many migrants who find shelter and
food in the berry-rich bushes. The Spring brings carpets of
primroses and bluebells and the birds, including the southern
visitors, fill the air with song. The ecology of the site will
be sensitively balanced with the need to access family graves
safely. A particularly unsafe section of the Cemetery has
already been fenced off to comply with Health and Safety
regulations. However, chestnut paling has been used to great
visual effect and accompanied access is offered to those wishing
to visit their family graves within the fenced off area.
Arnos Vale Cemetery
now has a secure future which means that already some of the
aims of the Friends and the Trust have been achieved. Working
together with Bristol City Council, they are confident that with
the help of those who care, Arnos Vale will once again achieve
the respect, dignity and prestige which inspired its inception.
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