Summary

The Cemetery was laid out by Edwin Patchitt for the Church Cemetery Company and was opened in 1856.

Historical Development

The Nottingham Enclosure Act 1845 enclosed fields and meadows, used by the burgesses of freeholders of the City to graze their animals, and to compensate for the loss of open space used for recreation, allotted space for a series of places of public recreation and public walks. One hundred and thirty acres made up of Queen’s Walk and Queen’s Walk Park (Meadows Cricket Ground) Victoria Park, Robin Hood Chase, Corporation Oaks, St Ann’s Hill Avenue, Nottingham Arboretum (qv), the General Cemetery (qv), Waterloo Promenade, the Church Cemetery and the Forest were created as public open spaces from the enclosures. This Act allocated four acres for Church Cemetery. The Church Cemetery Company formed in 1851, added a further nine acres to the Cemetery. The Cemetery designed by Edwin Patchitt, a local solicitor and Clerk to the Cemetery Company, took several years to build and was not yet finished when it opened in 1856. The Mortuary Chapel was added in 1879. The City Council took over responsibility for the Cemetery in 1965 and it remains in their ownership.

Site Description (Location, Area, Boundaries, Landform and Setting)

Church Cemetery, also known as Rock Cemetery, lies north of the centre of Nottingham immediately south east of the Forest, a public park, and comprises 5.2 hectares. A triangular shape, the Cemetery’s eastern boundary is part of Mansfield Road (A60), the southern boundary is part of Forest Road East, both marked by iron railings, with the remain boundary, a high coursed Bulwell sandstone wall, being contiguous with the Forest. The Cemetery, built on old sandpits, slopes gradually northwards towards the Forest with a deep natural hollow, known as St Ann’s Valley in the north-east corner of the site. The setting is urban.

Entrances and Approaches

The main entrance to the Cemetery is off the corner of Forest Road East and Mansfield Road between large stone gate piers and ornamental iron gates. The main processional path, cobbled by the entrance then tarmac ked, leads north-westwards with, standing west of the entrance, a small brick and render lodge (c1865) with a slate roof and gable and porch bargeboards. The main path leads westwards with midway along the path a spur leading to the site of the Mortuary Chapel (demolished 1965)

Principal Building

A cottage adjoining one of the three windmills which formally stood on the site of the Cemetery was used as a temporary Chapel after the opening of the Cemetery and was subsequently demolished. A Mortuary Chapel, designed by E W Godwin, was built in 1878-79 and opened in August 1979. The Cruciform Chapel with a central tower and pyramidal spire (demolished in 1965) stood 210 metres from the south-eastern lodge of a spur off the main processional path.

Other Land

The layout of the Cemetery is determined by the sandstone rocks and old sandpits on which the Cemetery was created. The Cemetery has four main areas: the terrace to the south with a straight promenade to the site of the Chapel; the section in the centre and north-west which is terraced and has ashlar retaining walls; the catacomb range in St Ann’s Valley in the east and the north-west corner which uses natural caves, cliffs and outcrops.

The main processional path along the top terrace runs east past a War Memorial (c1920, listed grade II) designed by Sir Richard Blomfield (1856-1942) built of Portland stone, which stands 10 metres from the entrance lodge. Midway along the path a spur leads north to the site of the former Mortuary Chapel the main route continuing on the raised area of graves. The latter terrace has a number of fine Edwardian figure sculpture tombs. Another path runs northwards from the lodge to sandstone caves. This area has the most impressive Victorian monuments, several of which are set in rock. From the caves the path continues along a sunken path to a long ramp flanked by brick walls, part of the walls being contiguous with Forest Park. The ramp leads to St Ann’s Valley, a natural hollow made larger and strengthened for the building of catacombs and the long ramped entrance (1851-56, the remaining walls and stairway listed grade II). This earthmoving together with the formation of the mounds and terraces elsewhere in the cemetery was done by the unemployed poor in the late 1850s.The exposed bedrock of the Valley supports buttressed Gothic arches. Immediately at the bottom of the ramp are lines of paupers’ graves with stone slabs recording the names of the number of adults and children in each grave. South of the graves are the more scattered individual graves. A few ornamental trees are planted in the centre of the space. Under the arches of the ramp and continuing around the south side of the Valley are the catacombs containing individual burials. A tunnel links the Valley with the western part of the Cemetery.

References

C Brooks, Mortal Remains (1989), pp 169-170
C Brooks, ‘English Historic Cemeteries, a theme study’ (1994), p61
Nottingham Civic Society Newsletter, M Peck ‘City of Nottingham
Cemeteries’, No 73 April 1987
D Gray, Nottingham, Settlement to City, (1953, reprinted 1969), pp 66-68
R Mellors, Gardens, Perks and Walks of Nottingham and District (1926)
pp148-151
N Pevsner and e Williamson, Buildings of England: Nottinghamshire (2nd
Edn 1979), pp238
J Beckett, Nottingham, an Illustrated History (1997) p49

Maps

George Sanderson, Twenty Miles Around Mansfield, 1835 (reproduced in
Beckett)
Nottingham Enclosure Award 1865
OS 1st Edition 25” to 1 mile published 1881
OS 1st Edition 25” to 1 mile published 1882

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