Blandford Forum

Burials 1822 to 1861

Transcribed from the Parish Registers and donated to the Dorset OPC Project by Bruce Willatt & Trevor Taylor

The Parish Register is difficult to read in places, so readers are invited to use this transcript as a guide only and to consult the original at the Dorset History Centre.

THE DAMORY STREET BURIAL GROUND IN BLANDFORD FORUM.

Early in the 19th century the graveyard around the parish church of Blandford Forum was becoming too small to meet the needs of the town and a new burial ground was instituted to the west of Damory Street. This land, sited between an old bowling green and a national school (which then had been recently built) had been used in the past to pitch tents for those made homeless by the great fire of Blandford in 1734. Together with land for burials it had a small Chapel of Rest on the site.

The first person to be buried in the Damory burial ground was John Wheeler on 28th August 1822, aged 37. Thereafter there were approximately 50 burials a year in this graveyard although the number varied year on year. More than one burial a day was not unusual and on 11th July 1834 there were three burials. In 1825 there was even a burial on Christmas Day.

This continued for about thirty years with around 1500 burials in a relatively small area and almost all of the tombstones that remain record a number of burials in each grave. The new Burial Acts of 1852 and 1853 required that overcrowded and insanitary graveyards be closed and Borough Councils were obliged to provide cemeteries. Consequently the current Blandford cemetery (Salisbury Road) was established and the first burial, that of Edward Cable took place in this new cemetery on June 16th 1856.

Although the new cemetery provides one area for Church of England burials and another for other denominations, no evidence of burials in the Damory Street ground of those outside the Church of England could be found from the records despite the presence of non-conformist groups such as those of the Congregationalists whose pastor had a school in Salisbury Street.

As a consequence of the creation of the new Salisbury Street Cemetery, the Damory Street burial ground was closed and used only occasionally, presumably for those who wished to be buried with family members. The last burial in the Damory Street ground, that of Martha Groves (whose father had a chemists shop in the mid 1850's in Blandford Market Place) took place on 10th February 1921. She was aged 89.

Unfortunately, by 1881 the local newspaper, the Blandford Express, observed that the Damory burial ground had become dilapidated with sunken graves and rising ant hills making the surface unsightly. A plea for restoration and tidying up was made but whether this took place is unknown.

There seems to be no further record of the graveyard until the 1970s when, on 18th April 1973, the Church Commissioners were permitted by order in council to allow the Damory graveyard be used for other uses. The area was sold, the chapel of rest demolished and the graves moved to one side, the area tarmacked over and is now used for car parking. Most of the gravestones are deteriorating rapidly and some are overgrown with ivy, it only possible to decipher a few of the names on the memorials and it is apparent many of the gravestones have disappeared.

Sources: Blandford Forum Church Burial Records.
Blandford Express, 1881.
Historic England Website.
The London Gazette, 25th April 1973, p. 5224.