Summary
Detached asylum cemetery with associated boundary walls, gate piers, and a mortuary chapel. Laid out in around 1873 to 1875 for Somerset and Bath County Asylum.
Somerset and Bath County Asylum was built in response to the Lunacy Act (1845). The Act made it compulsory for counties to erect ‘pauper lunatic asylums’. It is recognised that the term ‘lunatic’ is an antiquated term that is offensive, and is therefore only used here in terms of historic names of buildings and legislation.
Reasons for Designation
Mendip Hospital Cemetery, laid out in around 1873 to 1875, and enlarged in 1921, is included on the Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Date and rarity:
* as a relatively intact example of a detached asylum cemetery.
Extent of survival:
* for the continued survival of its key elements including mortuary chapel, gate piers, stone boundary walls and iron fence boundary to the west, grid layout of burial plots, as well as bespoke headstones and a collection of cast-iron grave markers;
* for the retention of several Irish yew trees from the original planting scheme of 1880.
Historic interest:
* it has strong historic character as a post-1850 cemetery that reflects the influence of the horticultural writer J C Loudon on cemetery improvement;
* as an example of an asylum cemetery that demonstrates an unusually high level of care and expense in its design and layout to ensure that it provides a dignified place of memorial for the asylum’s patients.
Documentation:
* for the good level of survival of contemporary documentation associated with the cemetery, including the original plan for its layout, minutes of the Board of Visitors meetings, and the Burial Register.
Group value:
* with the Grade-II listed mortuary chapel;
* with the former Mendip Hospital (Somerset and Bath County Asylum) which along with its chapel and south lodge are listed at Grade II;
* with the Grade-I listed Wells Cathedral and the scheduled monument Kings Castle which provide important views from the cemetery.
History
In 1845 the Lunacy Act made it compulsory for counties to make provision for their poor members of society suffering with a psychiatric condition, and between 1845 and 1914, a network of about 120 ‘pauper lunatic asylums’ were built across the country. These purpose-built asylums were usually deliberately placed in a rural setting for the benefit of the patients, with the grounds being laid out in the style of a modified country house estate with extensive areas provided for therapeutic and recreational use. Some asylums included a burial ground within the asylum grounds, whilst others relied on local parish churches or cemeteries. Of the 14 asylums that were built in the south-west of England, only four were provided with their own cemeteries, and Mendip Hospital Cemetery is the only one of these that was detached from the main asylum site.
Somerset and Bath County Asylum (Grade II, List Entry number 1345148), later known as Mendip Hospital, and now converted to residential use, was designed by the architects George Gilbert Scott and William Bonython Moffatt, and built between 1845 and 1847, and is one of the earliest county asylums to be built following the Lunacy Act. Initially, deceased patients were buried in the churchyard of the Church of St John Evangelist (Grade II, List Entry number 1178007) in East Horrington that was built in 1838 and located about 1km to the north-east of the asylum. Subsequently, Wells General Cemetery, which opened in 1856, provided space for the burial of paupers from the city of Wells, surrounding parishes, and the asylum.
In 1872, when it became clear that Wells General Cemetery could no longer accommodate the burial of the asylum’s dead, the Board of Visitors commissioned the County Surveyor, Arthur Whitehead, to draw up preliminary plans and estimates for a cemetery for the specific use of the asylum. In October the following year, a three-acre site to the south of Bath Road, and located 850m to the south-west of the asylum, was purchased at a cost of £400. Whitehead’s plan formed the basis of the subsequent construction of the cemetery by the Wells surveyor Edwin Hippisley. The plan, entitled ‘County Lunatic Asylum – Plan of New Cemetery’, shows a two-acre cemetery site measuring 100m north to south and 70m west to east with a grid layout of rectangular burial plots separated by straight paths and enclosed by boundary walls. It also features gate piers to the entrance and a mortuary chapel. The detached asylum cemetery was conveyed to the Board of Visitors in 1874 and was consecrated by the Bishop of Bath and Wells on 27 January 1874, with the first burial on the 15 May 1874. The boundary walls were completed in April 1875, and the mortuary chapel built between 1878 and 1879, was first used on the 27 February 1880. There is a record of a plant order in February 1880 that refers to ‘36 Cupressi, 4 dozen Irish yews, 200 Laurels and 200 Laurestini’, with some of the planting positions being marked in pencil on Whitehead’s plan. The layout of the cemetery is shown on the 1885 Ordnance Survey map and, alongside the plan and evidence for planting, demonstrates that the original scheme was fully implemented.
The cemetery was built in the context of an increased interest in the management and provision of public cemeteries. This had emerged in response to an expanding population alongside a fear of disease, heightened by the cholera epidemics of the 1830s. In 1839, the surgeon George Alfred Walker published a pamphlet entitled ‘Gatherings from Grave Yards’ which highlighted the mis-management of over-crowded burial places in towns and cities. Four years later John Claudius Loudon, an influential horticultural writer and a leading proponent of cemetery improvement, published his book ‘On the Laying Out, Planting and Managing of Cemeteries’. Loudon aimed to meet the sanitary requirements from burial space whilst at the same time offering an attractive and instructive landscape of remembrance. The influence of these two publications is reflected in the Public Health Act of 1848 and various Burial Acts in the 1850s, and Loudon’s principles of design and planting had a huge impact on cemetery design from the mid-C19 onwards. Loudon’s influence is evident at both Wells General Cemetery which opened in 1856 and the asylum cemetery for Somerset and Bath County Asylum which opened in 1874. The similarity between the two cemeteries is also partly due to members of the Burial Board for Wells General Cemetery also serving on the Board of Visitors for the asylum, including Edwin Hippisley, and this may, in part, account for their similarities, albeit on different scales, and the unusually high level of care and expense spent on the asylum cemetery. Reflecting Loudon’s advice, the asylum cemetery includes the mortuary chapel aligned on an axis with the entrance gate piers and forming a visual focal point within the cemetery which is laid out on a grid pattern with burial plots divided by straight paths with verges to accommodate planting. The planting throughout features species included on London’s extensive planting lists, and the existing Irish yews appear to survive as part of the original planting scheme, and are shown on the 1947 aerial photograph. The cypress trees are likely to have been planted in the early C20.
By 1918 the burial ground had been filled and the diversion of a public right of way over the west side of the plot, running north to south, allowed an extension to the west. The new west boundary was formed by iron fencing and a laurel hedge. The extension, which was designed to complement the original character of the cemetery, was consecrated in December 1921. The cemetery now fully occupied the three-acre site.
From 1881, the graves were marked with simple cast-iron grave markers comprising a numbered circle on a shaft. Although many of these have been retained, the majority, apart from those to the north-west burial plot, are not in situ. Within the cemetery are also 21 bespoke headstones. These were erected to those deceased patients who had wealthier relations, but also includes a collection to former employees of the asylum, located to the east of the chapel. The last burial took place in 1963, and there are a total of 2,900 burials at the cemetery.
In 1948, responsibility of the cemetery was transferred from the asylum’s Board of Visitors to the NHS. The surrounding fields to the west, north, and east were developed for low-level housing in the mid-C20, and the approach driveway to the cemetery from Bath Road is now interrupted by Hooper Avenue from where ownership of the cemetery now begins. The cemetery is managed by the Friends of Mendip Hospital Cemetery.
Details
Detached asylum cemetery with associated boundary walls, gate piers, and a mortuary chapel. Laid out in around 1873 to 1875 for Somerset and Bath County Asylum.
LOCATION, AREA, LANDFORM, BOUNDARIES, SETTING
Located about 850m to the south-west of the former Somerset and Bath County Asylum (Mendip Hospital).
The 1.2 hectare (3 acre) cemetery measures approximately 100m north to south, and 100m west to east, with the land sloping downwards from north to south with views of the wooded valley beyond. It is bounded by rubble stone walls to the north, east, and south, with an iron fence and a laurel hedge forming the boundary to the west. To the south-east can be viewed the scheduled monument King’s Castle, an Iron Age enclosure (List entry number 1008807). To the west, in line with the entrance to the cemetery and the mortuary chapel is an axial view of Wells Cathedral (Grade I, List entry number 1382901). Surrounding the cemetery to the west, north, and east is a mid-C20, low-level, housing development.
ENTRANCES AND APPROACHES
The cemetery was originally approached from a driveway from Bath Road. This section is no longer part of the cemetery ownership and the cemetery is now accessed halfway along the original line of the driveway from Hooper Avenue to the north via a 90m driveway with flanking rubble-stone walls, forming part of its setting. At the south end the drive turns ninety degrees to the east leading to the stone gate piers that mark the entrance to the cemetery. The piers are chamfered with broach stops and incorporate panels of squared, red rubble sandstone to each face. To the base of the east and west face are chamfered kerbstones and to the top are flat pyramidal caps. The wrought-iron gates are later replacements. To either side of the south section of the driveway are flower beds with low rubble stone walls. There is a further wedge-shaped flower bed to the west of the chapel.
LAYOUT AND MONUMENTS
The burial ground is laid out on a four-by-two grid forming eight rectangular burial plots separated by straight mown grass paths. Several of the specimen Irish yew trees (Taxus baccata ‘Fastigiata’) correspond to their marked positions on Whitehead’s plan, at the junctions of the principal paths and on the boundaries, and appear to be from the original planting scheme from 1880. Other surviving specimen cypress trees (Chamaecyparis or Thuja) appear to be of lesser age and are likely to have been planted in the early C20, possibly to replace failed original specimens. The six burial plots to the east side were laid out in 1874 and were bounded by rubble stone walls. The west wall was removed when the two plots to the west were added in 1922 and a new west boundary formed of an iron fence and a laurel hedge. The vast majority of the graves were marked by cast-iron grave markers comprising a simple numbered circle on a shaft. Whilst many of these survive only those to the north-west burial plot are believed to be in-situ. There are also 21 bespoke headstones of various designs dotted throughout the cemetery, with a concentration to the east of the mortuary chapel.
PRINCIPAL BUILDING
The mortuary chapel located in an elevated position to the north of the site and aligned on a west to east axis in line with the stone gate piers, forms a focal point within the cemetery’s layout. The chapel’s design is attributed to Edwin Hippisley (based on preliminary plans by Arthur Whitehead) and was completed by 1879. It is constructed of irregularly coursed white and red rubble stone with ashlar dressings and the steeply-pitched roof is covered in slate tiles. There is a porch to the west end, with the view of Wells Cathedral towers framed by the stone gate piers.
