BY the mid-19th Century, the burial grounds attached to Maldon’s All Saints’ and St Peter’s churches were well and truly full.

Successive generations of countless parishioners had been laid to rest in the confines of the two churchyards.

Each time the sexton dug a new grave he broke into an earlier one and disturbed the remains of previous, ancient interments.

In the case of All Saints’ the small, wrap-around space from south to east to north is still very limited indeed.

From the earliest times, older bones that were unearthed there were put into storage in a charnel house under the eastern portion of the south aisle, a void some 20 ft by 14ft6 that was once “full of human bones thrown in (via a surviving chute) from the graveyard”.

In the yard itself there are 98 surviving headstones, marked graves and memorials, dating back to the 1720s.

At nearby St Peter’s, although the church was declared redundant as a separate entity in 1244 and most of it demolished in the late-17th century, burials continued on site – lots of them, as attested by the burial registers and 33 marked graves.

With a growing population (from 2,500 townsfolk in 1801 to almost 6,000 in 1870) and a high mortality rate, a solution was desperately needed.

The Burial Act of 1853 empowered local authorities in the provinces to set up and run public cemeteries, to be administered by burial boards.

Maldon responded by allocating land on the outskirts of town, alongside the old London Road, on the brow of Wintersleet Hill (to be known thereafter officially as Cemetery Hill and Cemetery Vale).

The municipal cemetery, complete with two mortuary chapels (each side for consecrated and unconsecrated), was formed in 1855 at a cost of £1,300 and was subsequently enlarged in 1883.

Initially, it only served the parishes of All Saints’ and St Peter’s, with St Mary’s continuing to use its dedicated churchyard.

By the early 1890s, the burial board had a large committee of representatives for the two parishes (including the vicar), a clerk-cum-registrar (to whom applications for spaces was made) and a sexton who lived on site in the Cemetery Lodge (now a private house).

It was in good order, with “the graves and walks well kept”, and noted for its “pretty trees and shrubs”.

The public were to be admitted “at all reasonable hours”.

The funerals of Maldon’s Victorian dignitaries were usually big affairs that culminated within the cemetery grounds.

Take, for example, the death of George Digby, the much respected town clerk, in October 1877.

The cortege started at his home on Cromwell Hill and proceeded at a slow pace to the cemetery.

It was a Saturday afternoon and those present included the mayor, borough police officers and many officials.

Rev Horwood, from All Saints’, read the service.

Clerk Digby’s tombstone can still be seen in the old part of Maldon Cemetery, the area accessed through the first, or bottom, gate.

He lies alongside other prominent locals and if you want to rediscover their individual stories then go and explore that section and have with you my friend David Hughes’ excellent book, The Maldonians (Folk Corp. 1996).

In addition to the well-heeled, paupers from Maldon’s workhouse were also buried in the cemetery – at least 40 of them between 1873 and 1948. They now have a permanent marker, as does brave Frederick Corbett (aka David Embleton) who was awarded the VC in 1882 while serving with the King’s Royal Rifles, only to have it forfeited and to die in the workhouse in 1912.

And talking of the military, there are 21 graves recognised by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (six from the Great War and 15 from the Second World War) and plenty of other service personnel that are mentioned on private family headstones. There even used to be German airmen buried along the edge of the cemetery, but their bodies were exhumed and transferred to the German Military Cemetery at Cannock Chase in Staffordshire.

The first cremations in modern times began in 1885 and, not far from the single surviving chapel, there is a dedicated Garden of Remembrance, with roses, other flowers and plaques.

All of these monuments come together to make a rich ‘archive in stone’ that can reveal so much about our ancestors. As a result, the cemetery is a popular destination for those keen on local history and genealogy.

Three generations of my own family are buried there – father, grandfather and great-grandfather – and no doubt some of yours are too.

It is not just a heritage site, however, as it continues as a functioning cemetery today, but there is so much that can be said about the place. It is a haven of comfort, of nature, of wildlife walks, home to the Maldon Shed project (housed in another former mortuary building) and more besides.

It is all maintained by Maldon District Council, aided by a dedicated team of hard-working volunteers and community services. To ensure it continues to be a major feature of Maldon’s past and future, a proposal has been made to form a Friends Group. If you would like to be part of the initiative, email the cemeteries officer at Debbie.Horrey@maldon.gov.uk.