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Kay Collins 2007
Rushden Cemetery
Cemetery Lodge - now 'Spruce Lodge' View across the cemetery to the chapel
Cemetery Lodge - now 'Spruce Lodge'
View across the cemetery from Newton Road gates to the chapel

Extract from Council Meeting August 1919

Cemetery—The quarterly report of the Cemetery Registrar was received, from which it appeared that there had been 41 interments during the quarter, four of which were non-parishioners. Fourteen grave spaces had been purchased and three reserved for a period of 14 years. The total receipts for the quarter had been £63 19s. 0d., and no fees remained unpaid.

The Committee considered the report very satisfactory.

The Surveyor was instructed to have laid out the unused portion of the Cemetery, and for this purpose to advertise for men at the rate of 1s. 1½d. per hour.

The report was adopted.
Rushden Echo & Argus, 22nd October 1954

Official Notices
Open Spaces Act 1906 - Newton Road Cemetery

Notice Is Hereby Given that the Council propose to remove or change the position of certain monuments or gravestones standing or being in section A of the Newton Road Cemetery, with the intention that such section of the cemetery shall be levelled, turfed, planted and generally improved in appearance. Section A comprises children's graves used for interments between the years 1889 and 1907.

A statement of the graves included in the said section A, with particulars of interments therein and of the monuments or gravestones, has been deposited at the Council Buildings, Rushden, and may be inspected during the usual office hours.

Dated this 22nd day of October, 1954.

A. G. CROWDY Clerk of the Council
Council Buildings,
Rushden.
The Cemetery was dedicated on September 27th 1888, a lovely bright day, by Canon Barker.

The "purchase" of a grave usually meant for 100 years, and depending on the depth of the first burial, may be used for up to four bodies. If a memorial stone is already on a grave which is to be opened for a subsequent burial, then the stone mason is asked to fetch the memorial away. If no relative requests the replacement of the memorial it will remain in the masons yard for up to ten years, but then may be discarded. Those inscriptions are lost forever.

The Memorial Inscriptions are transcripts from the gravestones, but not every grave had a stone. The Plan of the cemetery shows where each section is together with the grave numbers and the layout of the Sections shows the grave numbers by rows. The Memorial Walls have been erected where section A & B gravestones were removed in 1954 and these commemorate cremations or people who were buried elsewhere. The Stones Removed lists inscriptions on the stones found laying along the path inside the perimeter fence in 1992 when the recording began, but these are now very overgrown with ivy. The index to all the Cemetery Burials is from 1888 to 2003, when the Rushden Town Council kindly allowed us a copy of some of the information from their database.

All these records give a snapshot of the areas at the date of the survey - some graves may have been opened for further burials and some may have had stones or additional inscriptions added.
grave space receipt
1906 receipt for grave space and burial fees signed by John Sargent, cemetery registrar, and rate collector for 30 years.

The grave in B section and numbered 768, and was for
Nathaniel Skinner who had died aged 47. His wife Sarah
was buried in the same grave in 1938 aged 82.

Map showing the Cemetery top right



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