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 There was a time, not so long ago, when certain London
Cemeteries were being sold off for pence. They were deemed to have served their
purpose, and were becoming a big problem in terms of maintenance. So the
appropriate bodies who were responsible for the cemeteries considered it a wise
move to sell off the land for a peppercorn.
Much later, the councils
involved were to discover how foolish they had been. Over the past twenty years
we, as a nation, have discovered how valuable these acres are. Indeed, they
have proved to be havens for fast-disappearing wild life, both flora and fauna.
With the encroachment of urbanisation, the churchyards and cemeteries of our
land are proving to be the last refuges of many rare plants and animals.
Some years ago the Arthur Rank Trust at Stoneleigh in Warwickshire decided
to set up a project to be known as ‘The Living Churchyard’. Since
those early beginnings, burial grounds all over the country have been
integrated into the scheme. ‘The core of a churchyard or burial ground
embraces many factors which our present generation can relate to. These are a
concern for conservation, both for our wildlife and architectural heritage, a
chance for solitude, away from the presses and stresses of life, and a desire
to find significance in thinking about the mysteries of life and death.’ *
At the lowest level they can be a place of quiet "green" reflection in a noisy
hectic world.
In Faringdon, old Berkshire, but since 1974 in
Oxfordshire, we are fortunate in having a free Church Cemetery; We have to go
back to the year 1860, when seventeen worthy citizens of Faringdon felt it
necessary to purchase a plot of land for the burial of Protestant Dissenters.
The reason for this move was because it was sometimes difficult to persuade
Anglican parish priests to bury the bodies of those people who had not adhered
to, or been members of the national church. In some way, Non-conformists were
considered to be what we should call "second class citizens". This may seem a
strange notion in our days of ecumenism, but make no mistake, it was so.
To
put an end to this type of discrimination our seventeen worthy men of Faringdon
decided to take the risk of buying a plot of land in Canada Lane, then known as
Gas House Lane, because of the Faringdon Gas Company which had its works there.
Perhaps It was not the most salubrious of places, next door to the Gas works,
but it was a pleasant enough area which had been an orchard, and before that
the Old Pound. In the original deed it was described as "All that piece or
parcel of land or orchard, situate lying and being in Westbrook, within the
manor of Great Faringdon measuring in front to the new road there 132 feet and
in depth backwards 242 feet and containing in the whole by admeasurement 3
roods more or less bounded on the north west by the said new road
……".
The names ‘of the seventeen original trustees are
as follows: Oliver Gerring, William Noad the younger, Samuel Clayden, George
Lewis, Arthur Ballard, James Fidel the younger, Joseph Johnson, Jeffery Thomas
Chamberlain, James Bell Hands, Charles Oldacre, Thomas Poore the younger,
George Face, Thomas James, George Davis, William Taylor, John Abel and John
Baker. It is interesting to see names cropping up that are still in Faringdon
to this day.
So our first trustees set about enclosing the Cemetery with
stone walls. No doubt this was cheap enough in those days. The first burials
for Protestant Dissenters must soon have followed once the ground had been
suitably prepared.
At that time there were the following
Non-conformist places of worship in Faringdon, the Independent Chapel in
Marlborough St, the Baptist Chapel in Bromsgrove, the Primitive Methodist
Chapel in Coxwell St, the Wesleyan Chapel in Gloucester St and the Friends
Meeting House in Lechlade Rd. How folks must have been relieved to have
somewhere to bury their dead, somewhere perfectly legitimate, and not be
beholden to the local vicar who might or might not agree to perform the last
rites. |
