| I love wandering around 19th
Century municipal cemeteries, with their
secretive corners and lost worthies
waiting to be rediscovered. But of all
East Anglian cemeteries, Bury St Edmunds
is perhaps the least atmospheric and
exciting, and not just because of the
obvious contrast with the lovely old
burial ground between St Mary's church
and the Cathedral in the centre of the
town. Perhaps it is to do with how flat
and domesticated it is - the headstones
seem as if they are an intrusion in an
otherwise polite public park. The
cemetery chapel was the 1855 work of
local architects Cooper & Peck, who
were also responsible for the grand lodge
house. The chapel is finished in coursed
flint, the lodge in a more crazed style.
It appears that there was only ever one
chapel instead of the two you usually
find, one for Anglicans and one for
non-conformists. Probably the many
chapels of busy non-conformist Bury were
considered perfectly adequate to provide
services for their dead who were then
carried out to the cemetery along Kings
Road.
The chapel is oriented
south-north, with the entrance at the
south end and vestigial transepts to east
and west. A perky little spire with
oversize lucarnes, looking most un-East
Anglian, pokes up in the angle to the
south of the east transept. The west
transept is boarded up, and the chapel
appears to be no longer in use. The
modern burial area is in any case way,
way to the south on Hospital Road with
its own entrance.
As you leave, look up on the
side of Cooper & Peck's lodge beside
the gate on Kings Road and you can see
the original bell which would be rung for
entrance to the cemetery, stil in situ
after 150 years.
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