Dorking Burials

[CeBe]

Where would I start to look for burials of relatives that occurred prior to the opening of the Dorking Municipal Cemetary. I have obtained a gravesite plan for the DMC which helps immensely (also with help from the Surrey Burial Index) but can't seem to make any headway into other burial sites in Dorking. thanks for any suggestion and help.

CeBe

[Valda]

Hi

Have you checked out all the links in the help guide at the top of the Rootschat Surrey main and look up boards?

A GUIDE TO BURIALS IN SURREY

Regards

Valda

[CeBe]

Yes - I read through all of the "Parts 1 to 4" (and found them very imformative, interesting and helpful) especially after looking for my Great Great Grandfather who was a suicide (Cooke) - but can't seem to find a mention of Dorking other than Mole Valley. When I contacted them (Mole Valley) they were able to send me a plan of the DMC site but made no mention of burials prior to the DMC opening in spite of being asked several times "Where would burials have occurred prior to the DMC opening?".

[Valda]

Hi

Cemeteries are maintained and administered by local authorities such as Mole Valley, churchyards by the churches concerned, who may have either deposited their records with the county record offices, the TNA, lost them or not deposited them at all (which is most Catholic churches - though largely they won't have had graveyards).

From the guide

The National Burial Index 3 (NBI), released March 2010, covers 185 parishes in Surrey excluding any in metropolitan Surrey. See the FEDERATION OF FAMILY HISTORY SOCIETIES for coverage:  http://tinyurl.com/yf5zuq4


They list with dates covered
The Municipal cemetery
Quakers (they have very few on the index)
St Martin
West Street Chapel


If there were other non-conformist burial registers they might not have survived but if they were handed over to the government at the start of civil registration 1st July 1837 they are held at The National Archives and are indexed here (link in the guide)

http://www.bmdregisters.co.uk/

Regards

Valda

[CeBe]

Thank you Valda. I'll keep on hunting!!

CeBe

[Jane Masri]

Hi CeBe,
At the moment the Dorking Museum is closed
http://www.dorkingmuseum.co.uk/  but you could try contacting Mary Turner the curator for information regarding burial sites.
I think Valda has covered much of the information but there is a chance that being a suicide the burial wasn't recorded.  We had a similar discussion on this board some months back concerning a suicide burial (I think Valda was involved) so she might remember the thread.
In the immediate area of Dorking there was St. Martins church & later St. Pauls but not sure if they had a burial ground,
jane

[CeBe]

Hello Jane

The reference to the "suicide" was simply a mention of how helpful I found Valda's information after spending alot of time looking for my great grandfather several months ago - yes the previous thread was mine! He was found.

This time I was looking for churchyard burial plans for the churches in Dorking to find other family members. I have been able to obtain the plans for Dorking Municipal Cemetery and the Churchyard in Leatherhead where other relatives are buried but unable to obtain anything in Dorking itself to cover the period prior to the opening of the DMC in 1850 or 1855 (I forget at the moment which year it was).

As I am flying to England on Sunday I will just tromp around the graveyards in hopes of finding other buried family relations!

CeBe

[Valda]

Hi

Cemeteries have plans. They were purposefully laid out as such mostly in the C19th and C20th because they were to be very large spaces with many people buried from surrounding areas and visitors needing to be able to find where individuals were buried. Churchyards began life serving the local village. Everyone knew where everyone lived and was buried. A plan of burials were not necessary, though obviously as the generations came and went knowledge was forgotten over the centuries. The only plans of churchyards tend to be of surviving gravestones where Family History Societies have transcibed and indexed the monuments (obviously many burials did not have gravestones and for those that did many gravestones have not survived). Other the years churches in towns and cities have had their churchyards encroached on by the buildings and roads surrounding them.
I have seen occasional churchyard records usually C19th and C20th that list burials giving letters but these are rare. If such records were made, survived and deposited they would be in Surrey History Centre catalogue.

West Surrey FHS certainly have a monumental inscription database which includes St Martin Dorking as it does St Mary's Leatherhead

http://www.wsfhs.org/Monumental.htm

Regards

Valda

[Jane Masri]

Hi CeBe,
Sorry, I misunderstood your first posting.
Holmwood church started burials in 1838.  Westcott in 1852 when each got their own church.  Before that they would have used the main church, St. Martins in Dorking.  There is also the West Street Chapel in Dorking for NC & although the Burial Index shows burials starting in 1730, when I walked around the chapel I could find no evidence of any churchyard.  When I asked at the museum nobody seemed to know...so that remains a mystery.
The DMC opened in November 1855.  I have a note that I made whilst at the Surrey History Centre that St. Martins closed for burials 21/11/1855.
I would suggest that you pay a visit to the Surrey History Centre at Woking as they have hard copies of MI's of some (not all were surveyed) of the churchyards.  By checking these you'll have a good idea of what headstones survived & where they are (saves a lot of tramping!)
I know St. Martins churchyard quite well (having tramped around it at least twice) & can tell you that there are many headstones that are not in situ, many are piled against the back wall & very difficult to get to.
I hope I haven't put you off but it's just a word to the wise as I see you'll be coming from Canada & I would hate to see you waste your precious time.
Have a good trip,

jane