History of East Hill Cemetery, Dartford

For many years, Dartford's burial ground was St Edmunds, a plot of land at the top of East Hill. By 1855, it was nearly full and the Dartford Burial Board needed to find somewhere else for the dead to be buried. That year they purchased 3 acres, 3 rods and 36 perches of land for £800 from the trustees of the Brett charity. Two mortuary chapels (one Church of England, the other Nonconformist) were built on the land. The new burial ground, now called East Hill Cemetery but then known as Brent Cemetery, was consecrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury in September 1857. The first burial was on October 3^rd 1857 (Joseph Bristow, a pauper aged 80 from the Dartford Union workhouse).

A list of fees and payments dated 1865 shows that the cost of burying an adult in unpurchased ground was 11s made up of 5s for the grave space and 6s for digging a grave 6 feet deep. A plot could be purchased for the exclusive use of a family. An ordinary single space, 4 feet wide by 9 feet long cost £1 11s 6d (first class) or £1 1s (second class). Gravestones could be erected on purchased ground but there were additional charges for this such as 10s 6d for the right to erect a headstone, £2 2s for any raised stone or tomb. It cost 7s 6d for permission to make additional inscriptions after the first one. Additional charges would be payable to the stone mason for the gravestone itself and to the church minister for conducting the burial service.

The cemetery records show burials as being in the SW, SE, NE or NW quarter. In the centre of each quarter is an area (which has no gravestones) used for common burials in unpurchased ground.

In 1881, the cemetery was extended by the purchase of a further 2 acres to the East of the cemetery. The land was bought from Mrs Jane Sankey for £400. The cemetery records describe this area as the extension ground. Dartford library has a copy of a plan drawn in 1886 showing over 2,100 grave spaces in the new area. The cemetery records denote plot numbers in the extension ground with the prefix A.

In 1895, the powers, property, duties and liabilities of the Dartford Burial Board were transferred to Dartford Urban District Council.

The cemetery records show that a burial was in consecrated ground only if the service was conducted by a Church of England clergyman. For the 6,500 burials from the opening of the cemetery to 20 Feb 1895, 4903 (ie 75.4%) were in consecrated ground. Ministers from the Roman Catholic, Baptist, Congregational, Primitive Methodist and Wesleyan Churches also conducted burial services.

The entrance to East Hill Cemetery in 1906

(courtesy Bob Appleton collection)

The following information on the number of burials was extracted from the cemetery records

Date	Entry number of last burial before this date	Burials in decade
1 Jan 1860	363
1 Jan 1870	1,915	1552
1 Jan 1880	3,664	1749
1 Jan 1890	5,482	1818
1 Jan 1900	7,565	2083
1 Jan 1910	9,925	2360
7 Apr 1914	10,983

The first burial in the new Watling Street Cemetery was on 7^th April 1914. By then there had been 10,983 interments in Brent Cemetery, which was renamed East Hill Cemetery in October 1914. Burials continued to be made in East Hill Cemetery after Watling Street Cemetery was opened. I estimate that about another 4,000 people were buried there during the period 1914 to 44 with maybe another 1,000 (in already purchased family graves) thereafter, making a grand total of about 16,000 burials.

The aerial photo of East Hill Cemetery above was taken in 1929. It shows two mortuary chapels. The eastern one (on the left in the photo) was for Church of England burials and the western chapel was for Nonconformists. Ordnance survey maps show that they were demolished sometime between 1961 and 1984.

It is no longer possible to purchase a new grave at East Hill Cemetery but interments in existing private graves are permitted. The last burial of a body that I have found a record of was Fred Crawford Holt aged 89 on 5 Feb 1997 (his gravestone is in the northern part of the extension ground). The cremated remains of Hilda Joan Bate were buried in plot A1430 (which has no gravestone) on 26 Aug 1998.

All legible inscriptions on gravestones in East Hill Cemetery can be found on the website Find a Grave (which is free to use). There are also photos of most of the graves with gravestones.