OLD DEVONPORT . UK
www.olddevonport.uk
 

BURIAL GROUNDS AND CEMETERIES IN OLD DEVONPORT

WESTON MILL CEMETERY AND CREMATORIUM

The land at Weston Mill for what was originally known as the Devonport Cemetery was purchased in 1899 from Mr Edward Saint Aubyn, the Lord of the Manor, for £25,000.

First to be erected was the chapel, for which the foundation stone was laid on Tuesday June 16th 1903.  The tender for the lodge and other buildings on the site, amounting to £1,572, was awarded to Mr Frederick J Stanbury on Tuesday January 26th 1904.

Weston Mill Cemetery was opened on Thursday November 10th 1904.  The Free Church Council dedicated their portion of the Cemetery on Wednesday November 16th.  The Church of England plot was consecrated by the Bishop of Exeter on Tuesday November 22nd 1904, during a heavy fall of snow.  The first burial took place on Saturday November 26th 1904.  By the end of that year twenty-five burials had taken place.

There are a large number of Commonwealth War Graves within the Cemetery.

A columbarium and a garden of rest, both designed by Mr Joseph Simcock, of the City Engineer's Department, were dedicated by the Bishop of Plymouth, Doctor Norman H Clarke at a ceremony on the afternoon of a very wet and windy Thursday October 17th 1957.  The Reverend Eric L Knight represented the President of the Plymouth Free Church Federal Council, the Reverend Ewart W Lewis, who was unable to attend.  The stones used in the erection of the garden of rest came from blitzed sites in the City.

The burial registers are still held by the Cemetery and a fee will be charged for a search.  However, members of the Devon Family History Society can access records that have been scanned via the Society's website.