Mendip Hospital Cemetery in Wells, Somerset

About

Get directions Wells, Somerset, England

Coordinates: 51.21065, -2.62630
www.mendiphospitalcemetery.org.uk/
Cemetery ID:

Members have Contributed

About these numbers These percentages indicate the number of Find a Grave memorials that have a grave photo or GPS coordinates. We don't know the total number of burials in a cemetery, so we cannot calculate a percentage of those with memorials, photos or GPS coordinates.

Photos

See 2 more

This cemetery was the burial ground for the Somerset and Bath Pauper Lunatic Asylum, later known as the Wells Mental Hospital, and later still, the Mendip Hospital. Here nearly 3000 former patients and staff were laid to rest between 1874 and 1963. The cemetery is now both a nature reserve and a living memorial to the poor souls buried here.

Much of the ground is now meadow, the grasses being mown just once a year in the autumn, encouraging insects, birds, and wild flowers to thrive. The pond is also full of life, from frogs in the spring to dragonflies in the summer, all living around the lily pads and rushes. Most of those buried here were poor and often forgotten by their families, so there are very few stone monuments. The vast majority had just a numbered metal marker on their grave, but these were later removed and stored in heaps around the site. Now, many have been arranged in groups around the pathways, some flanking remarkable wooden sculptures by the talented and sensitive artist, Peter Bolton.

Though so many souls lie in unmarked graves, they are not forgotten. In the chapel there a folder containing an alphabetical database of all those buried here: name, place of origin, and date of death. There are copies of the cemetery's burial and grave registers which give us the approximate location of each individuals burial, a great help for people tracing their ancestors. Also in the chapel you will find original maps and architects plans, as well as an exhibition celebrating the history of the hospital and its cemetery in photographs and documents. The cemetery is open every Sunday from April to October.