Author Topic: Can somebody explain difference between Brighton cemeteries?  (Read 2299 times)

Offline julie7239

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Can somebody explain difference between Brighton cemeteries?
« on: Tuesday 02 May 17 19:38 BST (UK) »
I am confused between at least two apparently different Brighton cemeteries.  There is the beautiful Extra Mural Cemetery, with an entrance on the Lewes Road, which then runs parallel to Bear Road.  If you keep walking through the Extra Mural Cemetery, at its very end you come to a gate on Bear Road, and if you cross over that very busy road you can enter the Bear Road Cemetery.  That much is clear to me, the Bear Road Cemetery is clearly labelled and obviously separated by a road.  If you then, instead of crossing that road, turn round and walk down a car-suitable road, and walk back towards the Lewes Road, leaving via an entrance about a hundred yards further down the Lewes Road, nearer to Brighton town centre, than the Extra Mural Cemetery Entrance you came in, then were you just in a cemetery with a different name?

I am wondering if I am confusing the Woodvale Cemetery with the Extra Mural Cemetery, and if they run into each other?  When I was standing at the gate next to Bear Road, I looked down and could see what looked like a modern graveyard, planted with a lot of young trees, and beyond that another graveyard.

I try to avoid going in currently used graveyards, for many reasons.  I find Victorian graveyards very beautiful, peaceful and interesting, and I enjoy photography.  Anyone who died after about 1920 I try not to photograph their gravestone, it just doesn't feel right. 

Can anybody explain which of these Brighton graveyards is which?  I think it is just the Extra Mural and Woodvale that I may or may not be confusing.  I do realise that the Bear Road cemetery is across the Bear Road from it.

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Offline julie7239

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Re: Can somebody explain difference between Brighton cemeteries?
« Reply #2 on: Tuesday 02 May 17 20:22 BST (UK) »
Does this map help?

https://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/sites/brighton-hove.gov.uk/files/WOODVALE_CEMETERY.pdf

Thanks.  I am still confused where the dividing line is.  There is a road for cars that curves back from the Bear Road exit gate, which is further South than the Extra Mural Cemetery entrance, and that car road if you follow it leads to the Lewes Road exit/entrance which is about a hundred yards south of the Extra Mural Cemetery entrance.  Are the graves to the south of this road part of the Extra Mural Cemetery or part of the Woodvale Cemetery.  There are a whole load of graves to the north of this car road, and I assume that is the Woodvale Cemetery?

Your map doesn't show the roads, so it is hard to tell where you are on it.  There are some pedestrian only paths, and also roads for cars, and a road that says no cars - I think, but as a pedestrian I am not sure what it means.

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Re: Can somebody explain difference between Brighton cemeteries?
« Reply #3 on: Wednesday 03 May 17 17:25 BST (UK) »
If you search fro Brighton and Hove cemeteries there is some useful info there that might help you find out what you want.


Offline John915

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Re: Can somebody explain difference between Brighton cemeteries?
« Reply #4 on: Wednesday 03 May 17 17:59 BST (UK) »
Good afternoon,

It's sometime since I was in the cemetaries. As far as I can recall the Extra Mural Cemetary is the original dating back to the mid 1800s. Shown on the map as the large open areas and contains all the large old victorian mausoleums and graves.

Woodvale opened in my lifetime sometime in the fifties. It is shown on the map as lots of small plots with letters and numbers.

Burials before the cemetaries opened were at the different churches around the city.

John915
Stephens, Fuller, Tedham, Bennett, Ransome (Sussex)
Rider (Fulham)
Stephens (Somerset)
Kentfield (Essex)

Offline julie7239

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Re: Can somebody explain difference between Brighton cemeteries?
« Reply #5 on: Wednesday 03 May 17 20:30 BST (UK) »
Good afternoon,

It's sometime since I was in the cemetaries. As far as I can recall the Extra Mural Cemetary is the original dating back to the mid 1800s. Shown on the map as the large open areas and contains all the large old victorian mausoleums and graves.

Woodvale opened in my lifetime sometime in the fifties. It is shown on the map as lots of small plots with letters and numbers.

Burials before the cemetaries opened were at the different churches around the city.

John915

Thanks.  I have read all the information I can find, such as on Wikipedia, and it seems, though I am not sure, that Woodvale is as you say a lot more recent and that all the old graves, mostly nineteenth century but definitely pre about 1920, are in the Extra Mural Cemetery.  I couldn't find a clear physical dividing line between the two, unless the road that I walked along back to the southern Lewes Road entrance gate is the demarcation line, with graves to its south part of Woodvale and graves to its north part of the Extra Mural Cemetery.

Further confused by the Brighton and Preston Cemetery, which I read is south of these, that might have been what I saw in the distance

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Re: Can somebody explain difference between Brighton cemeteries?
« Reply #6 on: Thursday 04 May 17 09:10 BST (UK) »
Brighton and Hove Council's cemeteries web site states that the Extra Mural Cemetery opened in 1851 and is 16.5 acres in size, Woodvale opened in 1857 and is 20.5 acres in size and City Cemetery in Bear Road opened in 1868 and is 31.5 acres in size.

Although the Brighton and Preston Cemetery shares the same overall cemetery land area with the Extra Mural and Woodvale Cemeteries it has its own web site seemingly not connected with or administered by Brighton and Hove City Council.

It is confusing and I can only assume that the Brighton and Preston area was opened when there were no further burial plots available at Preston in the churchyard next to Preston Manor. I haven't logged into the web site for this cemetery but the general web site page does indicate that there is a map of it and many photographs of gravestones.

Offline John915

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Re: Can somebody explain difference between Brighton cemeteries?
« Reply #7 on: Thursday 04 May 17 15:02 BST (UK) »
Good afternoon,

Sorry, misread the date of opening for woodvale. Could have sworn it said 1957, too much scotch maybe.

John915
Stephens, Fuller, Tedham, Bennett, Ransome (Sussex)
Rider (Fulham)
Stephens (Somerset)
Kentfield (Essex)

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Re: Can somebody explain difference between Brighton cemeteries?
« Reply #8 on: Thursday 04 May 17 16:01 BST (UK) »
I must admit I thought it was later than 1857 and I can't quite see the logic of opening two cemeteries in the same area of land just six years apart and presumably both were active at the same time.  It would be interesting to know when the Brighton and Preston cemetery was opened, I seem to recollect there were quite old graves there when I looked years ago.

I've just found out that the Brighton and Preston cemetery was opened in 1885/6.

There is an interesting history of all of the cemeteries in the Brighton and Hove and surrounding area at the link below, lots on the Extra Mural, Woodvale, Brighton & Preston and City Cemeteries:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cemeteries_and_crematoria_in_Brighton_and_Hove