Old Kingston Cemetery Project (Heritage Lottery Fund)

Cemetery Project

The “Friends of East Cowes Cemetery” came together in 2006, initially to carry out a project to improve and enhance our local cemetery, which had become neglected. With financial help from the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Local Heritage Initiative and practical help from the Isle of Wight Council’s Bereavement services we were able to purchase new seating and a commemorative tree for the central “chapel” area, create and plant up a bed near the entrance, clean and repaint the impressive but rusty gates (a recycling present from Queen Victoria), install a commemorative plaque and information panels, put up bird and bat boxes and carry out biodiversity surveys.We also repaved the old “mortuary” area near the entrance and planted a sensory bed beside it. An informative leaflet, available free from the Heritage Centre, was also produced.

However, the main purpose of the lottery funding was to enable us to set up a website with a database containing details of the burials in the cemetery. This involved many hours of research into the burial records held at the Isle of Wight Crematorium office. The database currently holds 3667 records.

The following people were involved:

• Janet Griffin (research, etc.)
• Margaret Lloyd (project supervision, work parties, etc.)
• Peter Lloyd (“mortuary” refurb. supervision, gate refurb., etc)
• Angie Mathews (air raid memorial cleaning, etc.)
• Philip le Mesurer (pruning work)
• Gavin Muncaster (original website)
• Brian Prior (this website)
• Margaret Prior (burial record research, wildlife surveys, etc.)
• Glyn Roberts (entrance panel; gate refurb, work parties, etc.)
• Sue Taylor (work parties)
• Angela Urban (work parties, etc.)
• Ken Wheeler (information panels, leaflets, wildlfe surveys, etc.)
  Also:
• Isle of Wight Bereavement Services (tree surgery, bench replacement, flowerbed groundwork, permissions & encouragement)
• IWC Countryside Ranger (erecting bat & bird boxes)
• East Cowes Primary School (posters for open day, making bat & bird boxes, bulb planting)
• East Cowes Heritage Centre (Open Day display, etc.)