More information : Cemetery situated 1.25 kilometres northeast of Trowbridge centre. It covers an area of 3 hectares and was designed by Charles Davis for the Trowbridge Burial Board in 1855 with tree planting carried out by George Wheeler and construction work by William Smith of Trowbridge. The cemetery was consecrated by the Bishop of Salisbury on the 13th December 1855. (1)
A mid-C19 Burial Board cemetery laid out to the design of C E Davis of Bath.
HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT
In the C18 and C19 Trowbridge, the county town of Wiltshire, enjoyed considerable prosperity arising particularly from woollen cloth manufacture. By 1854 an Order in Council had been issued for the closure of the existing overcrowded burial grounds in the town, and a Burial Board for the parish of Trowbridge was established by the Vestry in July 1854 (Burial Board Minutes, 18 July 1854). The Board immediately advertised for a site within or without the parish boundary comprising c 8 acres (c 3.2ha), on which to construct a cemetery (Minutes, 1 August 1854). Having viewed several potential sites in early August 1854, the Board finally selected one on The Down, which was offered by one of their members, the Rev J D Hastings, Rector of Trowbridge (Minutes, 5 August 1854). Unfortunately this property, comprising some 15 acres (c 6ha) of glebe land, adjoined residential properties and the consent of the owners and occupiers for the construction of a cemetery as required by law was not forthcoming (Minutes, 25 August 1854). Accordingly, the Board selected an alternative site on The Down, again agreeing to purchase glebe land, and applied for authority to raise a loan of £4000 for the construction of the cemetery (Minutes, 25 August, 29 September 1854).
In October 1854 the Burial Board sent invitations to eight architects to furnish proposals for the cemetery and its buildings (Minutes, 6 October 1854). This list included H E Goodridge of Bath (1797-1864), architect of Lansdown Cemetery, Bath (qv) (1848), G P Manners of Bath (c 1789-1866), City Architect and designer of the chapel at Bath Abbey Cemetery (qv) (1843-4), and James Medland of Gloucester (1808-94), joint designer of Warstone Lane Cemetery, Birmingham (qv) (1848) and Leicester General Cemetery (qv) (1849). Of the plans submitted, the Board chose those by James Medland and Charles Davis of Bath for further consideration, finally choosing Davis' scheme in November 1854 (Minutes, 24 November 1854). Davis' original plan, which does not survive, clearly envisaged a pair of linked chapels, for in December 1854 the Bishop of Salisbury objected to this feature of the design (Minutes, 15 December 1854). A revised plan of 1856 shows the site as laid out with a broad central avenue dividing the consecrated and unconsecrated sections, two chapels, a lodge, and serpentine outer walks. This general scheme was finally approved in late December 1854 (Minutes, 22 December 1854), and in March 1855 Davis was requested to obtain tenders for planting a belt of trees around the perimeter of the site. The Board instructed that this belt should 'contain a large number of funereal Trees', which should not be planted 'too thickly'. The contract for supplying 1500 trees was awarded to George Wheeler of Warminster (c 1791-1878), who planted them in accordance with a scheme produced by Davis (Minutes, 16 March, 23 March 1855). The contract for constructing the chapels and other buildings was let to William Smith of Trowbridge in March 1855, and the main carriage drive was constructed the following month (Minutes, 27 March, 17 April 1855). The new cemetery was consecrated by the Bishop of Salisbury on 13 December 1855, and the parish sexton, Charles Cheverile, was appointed first 'Superintendary' on 1 January 1856 (Minutes, 19 October, 28 December 1855). The planting of the new cemetery continued into early 1856, with George Wheeler being paid over £80 for plants supplied in March and April; thereafter one of the members of the Board, William Stancomb, was authorised to deal with Wheeler 'as necessary' (Minutes, 14 March, 23 May 1856). It is said that in the mid-C19 the new cemetery proved to be such a public attraction that a toll gate had to be moved in order that residents could visit it without paying tolls (Rogers 1984).
In the late-C20 the cemetery was extended to the south-east; this area lies outside the site here registered. The mid-C19 cemetery remains (2001) substantially unchanged, retaining its chapels, lodge, and structural planting together with several significant monuments and mausolea which reflect the prosperity of Trowbridge in the C19 and early-C20. The cost of laying out the cemetery in 1854-5 exceeded £5000 (VCH 1953), a high sum for a relatively small site; of this nearly £2000 was spent on the construction of the chapels, lodge, and other structures (Minutes, 27 March 1855). The site remains open for burials and in municipal ownership (2001).
The designer of Trowbridge Cemetery, Charles Davis, who served as City Architect in Bath (1862-1902), was also responsible for designing Weston-Super-Mare Cemetery (1855) and Lyncombe Cemetery, Bath (1859) (Brooks 1989). (2) |