I am currently suffering from Covid which is not the writers friend to say the least.

But this short piece came up on the BBC news website recently and it did raise the question, and not for the first time, about what happens to patients graves when the institution, hospital or asylum in which they lived closes.

The small iron crosses in Nayland cemetery seem to have a happy ending as local people, some of whom worked at the Jane Walker hospital, have taken on their upkeep for the foreseeable future. Follow the link for further information.

Nayland: The cemetery where iron crosses mark people with disabilities – BBC News

But not all patients graveyards have such a positive outcome and I have written in previous posts about Netherne Hospital cemetery which is abandoned and overgrown. Also, St Lawrence’s which was a hospital for disabled people, and now sits in the middle of a golf course. However, it is being cared for by a Friends group.  They are still acknowledged as burial places for patients or residents.

Others have not been so fortunate. In 1981, Cane Hill Hospital, a former Victorian lunatic asylum, was being prepared for redevelopment and their cemetery was cleared.  The remains of almost 6000 people were exhumed and cremated at Croydon Cemetery in Mitcham Road, Croydon. These included British First World War veterans who had had separate areas in the cemetery where they had been buried with full military honours. According to Wikipedia:

‘Research from plans indicated that there two designated main ‘service plots’ numbered 411 and 420, where six were buried in each grave. Eighteen of these, who had qualified for commemoration by the Commonwealth War Grave Commission (CWGC) are commemorated on a memorial that the CWGC erected in Croydon Cemetery, where their ashes had been scattered at ‘Location 1000’ in the grounds in 2015’

This is the unofficial memorial at Croydon Cemetery that records the servicemen interred there from Cane Hill. The original CWGC memorial was stolen and they do not recognise these.

In 2009, a headstone was placed at Location 1000 to record the patients buried there.

This was placed there due to patients families wanting to see the final resting place of their relatives and being directed to an

‘unmarked mound of earth in Croydon Cemetery’s Garden of Remembrance’

I have to say that it isn’t where I’d like my relatives last resting place to be.

However, a local councillor at the time felt:

‘sure that visitors will soon look on it as a suitable memorial area for those who died at Cane Hill.’

Anonymous in life and anonymous in death it would seem. There are some archive photos of the cemetery and the mound on www.simoncornwell.com     One wonders what memorials and information about patients was lost during this process especially as the NHS policy was to incinerate their records or leave them lying around in a derelict building. A local reporter did try and start a campaign to save them but it’s unsure what happened to it.

There is also the case of the Mendip Hospital Cemetery which I have written about in a previous post in which the NHS attempted to sell off a patients cemetery and Chapel as a ‘freehold development’. This was saved by local people who formed a friends group which appears to still be going strong. There are some lovely photos of it on TripAdvisor. The numbered iron markers, although long gone from the graves, are still there.

But who knows how many of these cemetery and graveyards have been lost over the years as the institutions close and no one knows what to do with them.  They are still someone’s relatives and as times change they may want to find out what happened to them. After all, local people saved the Mendip Hospital and St Lawrence’s and it was patients relatives who ensured that they finally had a proper headstone on the mound at Croydon Cemetery.  Someone cared enough to do something.

Text and photos© Carole Tyrrell unless otherwise stated.

Further reading:

Friends of Mendip Hospital Cemetery – Welcome

Cane Hill Hospital – Wikipedia

New headstone for Cane Hill paupers’ graves | Your Local Guardian

cane hill (simoncornwell.com)

The Forgotten Servicemen of Cane Hill | Surrey in the Great War:

‘And Bert’s gone syphilitic’ – The Real Tragedies Behind the Cane Hill Hospital Memorial at Croydon. | The Western Front Association