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Buried Treasures - Lancaster Cemetery.

Within the last century and a half they have become a prominent feature in the urban landscape.  Many are as important an aspect of our heritage as preserved historic buildings and conservation areas.  Both revered and reviled, they are often passed by without our giving them a second thought.

Cemeteries, far from being forbidding, gruesome places, remain sites of great tranquillity.  In some cases they have important wildlife benefits.  Many of the monuments are of interesting architectural value and the history - and often tragedy - of a district is laid bare.

These public burial places, although different the world over, have a common thread of serenity which binds them together.  In many European countries such as Spain, Malta, Italy and Portugal they are, by and large, immaculately cared for, maintained by the local population out of a sense of duty and respect for those who have gone before.  Often with no trees, few places to shelter from the hot sun and even fewer visitors, these are formal places where one is encouraged to pay one's respects and leave.  In Britain, in our towns and cities, it is the church graveyard and public cemetery that offer both a respite from the daily hustle and bustle and an opportunity to explore elements of our past.

Many of our urban cemeteries came into existence in the middle of the 19th century as a result of government legislation.  Up to this point a number of private cemeteries existed, originally opened by speculators who exploited the niche in the burial market when many urban church graveyards were unable to cope with demand.  In the early part of the 19th century some fourteen private cemeteries existed in London and conditions in some were shocking.  On one site in an area of less than an acre, some 14,000 bodies were buried, many only two feet deep. 

In order to pack in more bodies and therefore make more money, the private cemetery owners would partially burn and chop up corpses, then use quicklime to speed decomposition.  Bones were ground down for manure, lead coffins removed and the metal sold and wooden caskets broken up for firewood.  Many of these private cemeteries charged burial fees way above those affordable by the lower classes.  At Kensal Green Cemetery opened in 1833 by the London Cemetery Company, the cheapest burial was £1.10s,  a price way beyond the average family budget.  These costly fees were defended because high ranking architects, whose talents did not come cheaply, had been employed to oversee design and landscaping.

Demand soon dictated that provision should be made for cheaper burials.  In 1850 the Metropolitan Interments Act gave the Board of Health the power to establish municipal cemeteries and purchase existing private ones.  New cemeteries were developed in most urban areas, some quite simply open spaces, others elaborately planned and landscaped. 

Choose an urban church graveyard or municipal cemetery at random in Lancashire and there is probably something to discover.  Some aspect will emerge of local or national importance to our heritage, be it burial or design related, or in the context of monument architecture or environmental considerations.  The City of Lancaster is home to municipal cemetery which is not only very unusual in design but in some parts very beautiful.  It also plays host to somewhat of a mystery.

From Neolithic, Bronze-Age and Roman settlements, through the English Civil War and up to the present day, the City of Lancaster has a rich and well documented history.  Since the Duke of Lancaster's, Henry IV's accession to the throne all English monarchs, including our present queen, have been heirs to the Duchy of Lancaster.  The city's trade with the West Indies and America during the 18th century and its manufacture and export of furniture by the Gillow Company ranked it more important than the port of Liverpool. During the 19th century the development of oilcloth and linoleum manufacturing placed Lancaster once again at the centre of international trade with products exported the world over.

With the development of manufacturing during the 19th century came an increase in population. Many thousands of people migrated into the city from the countryside in search of work.  As with many other urban industrial areas, death rates among the lower classes and especially the young were high, disease and general poverty being the culprits.  Lancaster's church graveyards were unable to cope with the demand for burials and a number of municipal cemeteries were established by the city council.  The most notable of these is the main Lancaster Cemetery.

Little is known about the circumstances surrounding the development of Lancaster Cemetery as few records exist, except that it went against the norm of those being commissioned in many other cities during the mid-19th century. Opened in 1855, it is sited with commanding views across the city, Morecambe Bay and the Lake District beyond.  Dr Andrew White, local historian and former curator of Lancaster City Museums, says that "the cemetery was quite unique for its time and designed as a social experiment.  Separate sections existed for the burial of Protestants and Catholics - including Polish immigrants and Non-Conformists.".

Before these sections were alphabetically classified early in the 20th century they were given titles.  Whilst the meaning of some are clear - Roman Catholic Hill - the relevance of 3 Guineas, Dickie Lees, Postmans, Maggie Bonds, Haystacks and Depot are unknown.  Records held at the Cemeteries Department at Morecambe Town Hall indicate that over 51,000 people are buried here. 

Here a mystery begins.  The number of plots would normally allow around 13,500 single burials.  In some cases three or four family members are buried in a single plot, thus giving a much increased total figure. However, this could not possibly account for the recorded number of interments in relatively so few graves.  The records show that in many cases the number of burials in single plots was very high.  In graves paid for by the local burial board, burials of the city's poor took place, many of whom had ended their days in the nearby Lancaster Asylum.  Council documents highlight that in almost all instances multiple interments in single plots under Burial Board guidance was the norm.  In one 7ft deep plot, over a period of 80 years, 22 bodies were buried. Those laid to rest differed in age from 74 years down to an infant of a few days and had no common link except their pauper circumstances.  What happened to the skeletal remains of many of these people is the cause of some speculation. Clearly, even over a period of 80 years, the remains of so many coffins and bodies could not decompose in a few feet of earth.  The cemeteries department agrees that removal and subsequent disposal must have taken place, but by whom and to where is something of a conundrum.

What is clear as one walk's among the graves in the older sections of the cemetery is the infant mortality rate in the latter part of the 19th century and early 20th century.  Few of the older headstones at Lancaster record the cause of death or offer epitaphs and therefore one can only guess, but it is known that disease, including cholera, was rife in the city at one time whilst health care was poor.  In recent years, however, the erection of a simple, in ornate plaque in a leafy glade in remembrance of an infant death evokes an emotional response.  It ends with a simple yet poignant inscription -and all the babies who bud on earth and flower in heaven.

A century and a half of burials has brought grave architecture of all styles, from elaborate marble columns to simple tubular steel crosses.  Period fashions in headstone design are evident but it was perhaps the Victorians who were the most exuberant.  At Lancaster, as elsewhere, the Victorian affection for all things ornate extended to the grave. Any cemetery or graveyard of similar age will have examples of elaborate Victorian grave architecture, none more so than the private Highgate Cemetery in London, renowned for having the UK's most important collection of architecture and symbolism of the Victorian era. 

The Victorians did not choose gravestone symbolism lightly.  Each item was a religious code and had a personal meaning.  An anchor meant hope or rest; a butterfly: resurrection; the snake: eternity.  An urn has a dual meaning.  Flames leaping from it signify new life, but, when empty and draped, it symbolises death. In itself grave architecture is a fascinating subject.  Globally, the great pyramids of Egypt offer perhaps the best example, whilst in Britain ancient burial mounds containing the bodies of tribal chiefs and leaders demonstrate the importance to our ancestors of marking the passage from life to death with a lasting monument.

The elaborate granite gravestones of the Victorian era, their symbolism and elegant letter-work gave way to the stark, simple affairs of the Art Deco period with their bold lettering.  Subsequently, white marble slabs with lead lettering and grave boundary cornicing became fashionable.  Occasionally a relatively rare example of a headpiece can be found.  Wooden grave markers, because of their poor durability, are few and far between.  One such simple marker in poor repair with a stone insert and dating from the early 1920s can be found at Lancaster. But only if you are quick!

Cemetery planning during the Victorian period by and large followed the ordered and regimented attitudes of the time and would lay the foundation for the most economic use of the land.  To a large extent this is where Lancaster Cemetery differs.  With its wide curving avenues, terraces and areas of thinly spread graves it is a combination of the formal and informal.  Some sections follow the traditional linear row pattern whilst others seem haphazardly dotted with plots.  This may be due to the underlying bedrock which in some parts rises close to the surface. Until recent years, a number of grave-diggers held dynamite licences. 

Similar to its grave layout the landscaping of Lancaster Cemetery draws a balance between formal planting and natural vegetation.  This creates both a pleasant environment and an important wildlife habitat.  Century old oak, horse chestnut, beech and yew trees flourish together, in some areas creating quiet, cool glades.  In hidden corners rosebay willowherb, ragwort and other colonising species establish themselves bringing a myriad of butterflies, bees, hoverflies and other insects.  During September and October the trees take on their customary autumn colours resulting in a display far superior to many amenity planting schemes.  Lancaster Cemetery also supports a healthy population of grey squirrels and many species of birds.  Ground-feeding songbirds such as thrushes and blackbirds are encouraged together with tits, warblers and finches. Owls, common buzzard, kestrel and land mammals such as moles are also present.

Lancaster's famous son James Williamson, later Lord Ashton, whose family was credited with giving the world linoleum, was laid to rest here in July 1930.  His grave acts as a local link to our national heritage as do those of industrialists, politicians, inventors, local dignitaries and ordinary folk, poor or otherwise, buried in graveyards and cemeteries across the county, perhaps not because they changed history but because they are part of it.  72 years after the last burial has taken place at Lancaster Cemetery the land can be used for redevelopment or other purposes.  With no new plots being commissioned and only existing family graves allowed for continuing interments, is time running out for this piece of our heritage and others like it?

© Duncan Moore