Paulton cemetery dates from 1882 and is located south of Bath Road. It is bounded on the eastern side by the houses of Brookside and on the southern side by allotments. The eastern area is flat but the ground rises to the west. There is a chapel and a small building for the groundsman.
In the Anglican burial register 1858-1914 on page 107: ‘The New Burial Ground was consecrated by the Bishop of the Diocese on Monday October 16, 1882.' The first burial was on 16-Dec-1882. The first reference to the cemetery is from a press report in January 1890.
Sections B and C (nonconformist)
The ground is split into Anglican (A) and non-Anglican/nonconformist (B) sections with the latter extended in 1949 (Section C). The burial of cremated remains has its own section (D) at the eastern end; this has an arrangement of plaques in a grid to which other areas have been added progressively.
There are currently just over 3,200 graves with 1,478 is Section A, 1,426 in the nonconformist Sections B and C, and 347 in the cremated remains section D. About 40% of those buried have their names on memorials.
Some anomalies have been found in the numbering scheme. In section A row H instead of being a simple numbering scheme starting at 1 by the central path, the graves are H.1a, H.1b etc before reverting to H.2 at the position usually numbered 18. This leaves unexplained the graves between H.7 and H.13 (both of which have memorials) where the gap is 20 feet to accommodate 5 plots. The same occurs in row A.I which has A.I.1a to A.I.1h before starting again at A.I.1. In section A row E, there is a sequence E.1a to E.23. A continuation of the row by the metal fence has E.2 to E.9. To avoid confusion, this graves in this second part has been designated as being in row ‘E2’. A burial at A.J.28 has its memorial at A.G.38.
Going in a line west to east across the rows in Section A the plot numbers are not necessarily the same.
Part of Section D
The lower part of the Anglican section is almost devoid of memorials. Some memorials have been moved to a part of Section D where they have been placed on gravel by a wall. These displaced memorials have come from both Anglican and nonconformist sections.
Displaced memorials
In the index the register number for the cemetery is as the 'Burial Order Book' number. This may be supplemented by a burial register number from the corresponding entry in the Anglican burial register. Burials in the Anglican section do not necessarily have an entry in the Paulton Anglican burial register.
