“A cemetery is a place for burials, other than a churchyard or graveyard attached to a regular place of worship. Cemeteries are usually multi-denominational but may belong exclusively to a single denomination” (Rutherford, The Victorian Cemetery, 2008).
Reading Old Cemetery is an early example of a ‘Victorian garden cemetery’ in England.
Origins of Reading Old Cemetery
Following a private Act of Parliament in 1842, a private joint-stock company, under the name ‘Reading Cemetery Company’, was established to set up the new extramural (outside the town centre) private cemetery.
The first internment at the site took place on 1st May 1843.
The cemetery was built on farmland known as Hatton’s Platt, owned by Mr Chomeley Esq. At the time the site was within the parish of Sonning, just beyond what was the eastern boundary of Reading. It was part of the wider national movement to move burial grounds away from crowded town or city centres.
The Victorian intramural burial crisis
In Reading as all over the country, there were concerns about the insanitary conditions of the burial places in the local churchyards during the 1830s and 1840s. The town was often referred to as a ‘cesspit’, and mortality rates were higher than the national average. As Reading lies between the two rivers (the River Thames and the River Kennet), there were fears that waste from burial grounds could contaminate water supplies and contribute to cholera outbreaks.
Churchyards at St Giles, St Lawrence and St Mary’s were overcrowded and and extremely unsanitary, with people reporting that they could no longer walk through these areas because of the hideous smell! A new cemetery in the outskirts of the town was urgently needed.
Originally the new cemetery plans faced opposition by the vicars of the three Anglican parishes of Reading. The bill passed on the second reading and on Tuesday 6th September 1842 the first General Meeting of the Directors of the Reading Cemetery Company and the first stakeholders took place in the Council Chamber.
Design and construction
Originally tenders (drawings and specifications) for 5 contracts were issued for Monday 5th September 1842 that included:
- Episcopal Chapel (Contract A);
- Dissenting Chapel (Contract B);
- Entrance (Contract C);
- Boundary Walls (Contract D);
- Formation of roads and walks (Contract E).
Further tenders were invited for the erection of the entrance and both chapels for 1st October 1842 at the office of Mr William Brown, Architect & Co, at 154 Friar Street. The contract for plants was awarded to Sutton Seeds.
The cemetery originally included two mortuary chapels, one for Anglicans (Episcopal Chapel) and one for non-Anglicans, known as Dissenters.
Burials were separated between the Anglican consecrated ground and the Dissenters’ non-consecrated ground. The low wall that marked the boundary between the two areas still survives today. Reading Old Cemetery is one of the few cemeteries where a physical marker between the consecrated and non consecrated areas, such as a dividing wall, has survived.
The Masonic ceremony
On 27th October 1842 the foundation stone for the Episcopal Chapel was laid in a prestigious Masonic Ceremony by the Provincial Grand Master for Berkshire following a ceremonial procession from the Town Centre. The event, advertised in the national press, was attended by many spectators from and was well-documented in the press.
These two drawings of the masonic procession were originally part of the Illustrated London News (Saturday 05 November 1842).
A detailed report about the masonic procession and the dinner hosted afterwards was shared in the Freemasons’ Quarterly Review (1842, page 424-427). It gives us glimpses of the day, more about the context and significance of the occasion for the Cemetery Company. You can read the report or download the digital copy.
You can download a digital copy of the issue
Expansion and later changes
In 1887 the cemetery was extended at its far (east) end and a Garden of Remembrance was added, which is now the War Plot with the Sword of Sacrifice.
The two chapels were demolished: the Episcopal Chapel in 1961 and the Dissenters’ (Grade II listed) Chapel in 1981.
The Reading Cemetery Company owned and managed the site until 1959 when its ownership and management were taken over by compulsory purchase by Reading Borough Council. It is now a ‘closed site’, although burials (though rare) can continue in existing family-owned graves.
Downloadable map of the cemetery
