The Tree-mendous Trees of Spital Cemetery

Spital Cemetery is always open to the public for leisure and quiet contemplation. During the period of Heritage Open Days, our Information Boards will be on display containing background information about the opening of the Cemetery and some of the interesting stories of people buried there.

Spital Cemetery was designed as a Victorian Garden Cemetery and, as such, was intended to be a place for leisure as well as for visitors to mourn the loss of their loved ones. They were, therefore, parks and were planted as such with trees – many of which were brought from further afield than our native Britain.

We are fairly confident that one tree, an ash, was present in the field when the cemetery was opened and it’s possible others were too. However, several were brought from foreign parts. We have managed to identify some of these, but others remain to be confirmed. In particular, we appear to have a number of different types of pine trees.

Join us, to help us with this identification and see how far some of our trees have travelled in order to have taken up root here. Our findings so far can be found in the attached downloadable map.