CWGC Graves Camberwell Old Cemetary

[researchingreg]

 

I went to the Nunhead Cemetery open day today and was told that some 40 plus CWGC graves have been lost as, Southwark Council is cutting down woods and mounding over and digging up the dead to sell off their graves as 'new' burial plots. If true this is serious. I came across this in WW2 Talk http://ww2talk.com/index.php?threads/camberwell-old-cemetery.69266/ So it may not be as bad as I have been told. Does anybody know if CWGC graves have been lost?

Edited 20 May , 2017 by researchingreg

[CGM]

I cannot answer your specific question about what you were told at Nunhead but I can say it is not unusual, in London cemeteries, to be unable to locate individual burials if these took place in Common Graves. (Not to be confused with Pauper's Graves).

Members of families which could afford to pay for the funeral, but could not afford to purchase a private plot, were buried in these common graves.

It was quite usual.

Numbers in these graves varied from just a few to 20 or more.

Memorials were very rarely allowed and the actual boundaries between these graves were often not marked.

 

In London, I have seen large areas of Common Graves "mounded over" without any attempt to move the existing burials, in order to be able to use the land for burials again.

 

For example, in the 1980's, St Mary's Cemetery, Kensal Green reclaimed all the common graves and removed all headstones or grave markers. The graves were never disturbed but approximately 12 foot of fresh earth was placed above the graves. This is now used as new private plots.

 

Manor Park has also built earth up over a large area of common graves, landscaped the area and new burials take place there now.

___

 

Historically, those buried in unmarked graves, where it is impossible to locate the exact burial site, are commemorated on CWGC Screen Walls in the cemeteries, and this continues to this day.

 

I was in Camberwell Old some years ago when an area of common graves was being cleared of trees for re-use.

 

CGM

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Edited 20 May , 2017 by CGM
tidy up

[Phil Evans]

Geoff,

 

Have you seen this new thread?

 

I think it answers your question, although it doesn't make for pleasant reading.

 

Phil