Details
'- Dogs on lead
- Max 4 dogs per walker
- No fouling
Ann’s Hill Cemetery is located between the two artery roads, Forton and Foster that lead to the main Gosport town centre which are linked by St Ann’s Hill Road. This road bisects the old east cemetery from the more recent western one. On the west side, immediately to the north is a path beyond which are the back gardens of Southcroft Road with Wilmott Lane to the south. This cemetery extends westwards to a sports ground and Military Road. Both cemeteries are fairly flat although the west one has a slight gradient that dips from east to west.
Ann's Hill Cemetery contains 104 scattered graves from the First World War. A number of the 144 Second World War burials form a plot at the western end of the cemetery. 1 of these is an unidentified Merchant seaman. There are also 31 German burials, including 2 unidentified, and 1 Belgian burial in the cemetery.
As the population of England grew there was a need for more places to bury our dead. Each church’s graveyard held the dead of its parish and burying the dead was only allowed on the lands near a church. The church graveyards became full to overflowing and there was a need for more space, which often could not be found by expanding the size of existing graveyards. Cemeteries came into being to provide this space. Cemeteries are a particular type of burial ground that developed in Britain from the 1820s.
Before the mid 19th century most cemeteries were run as a private business and others by local authorities. The Burial Act of 1852 established Burial Boards which provided new publicly run cemeteries. At Gosport the renowned Portsmouth architect Thomas Ellis Owen was engaged to design a new cemetery at Ann’s Hill Lane, Gosport, south of Leesland Road. The layout and design was supervised by the Alverstoke Burial Board who acquired by purchase eight statute acres of land from the then current leaseholder. Owen designed two mortuary chapels and a porter’s lodge adjacent to the entrance, together with the perimeter brick wall. The wall was enhanced by trees that bordered its entire length. The two small chapels were at first referred to as the Dissenter’s Chapel to the north and the Episcopal Chapel to the south, which also had a small integral bell tower. The bell is sadly no longer in place. Beneath the bell tower, through the side door, is a small (night)watchman’s room with its own fireplace.
Through the entrance, with the porters lodge to its north, paths led out in four directions from a central circular flower bed with a fountain in the middle. In the north-east corner a small gate led to a church path, or corpse road which ran northwards to Leesland Road. This was for mourners to carry the dead to the cemetery if they could not afford a cart or carriage. To the south-east of the cemetery was a small mortuary building now completely demolished.
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