Shalford Cemetery The Street, Shalford, Guildford, Surrey, GU4 8DD
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If you wish to make enquiries about interment at Shalford Cemetery, please contact the Clerk or telephone 01483 579702 and see below for more information
Cemetery-rules-and-regulations-Nov-15
More information about the history of the Cemetery and its now closed Chapel.
The Story of Shalford Cemetery
Shalford Cemetery and its chapel came into use on 29 January 1887. The creation of the Cemetery had taken nearly seven years. In March 1880 the Rural Sanitary Authority declared Shalford’s churchyard full and told the parish to find a new burial site. A Burial Board, consisting of the Vicar, the curate, churchwardens and senior parishioners, was authorised to acquire a site and establish a Cemetery. The land eventually chosen was the one and three quarter-acre Kiln Field or Pound Field, purchased from the Godwin-Austen estate for £555 in September 1885. The previous years had been spent wrangling over other sites. The original proposal was to place the Cemetery on the Common, beside the main road and on the southern side of the railway line – but common land could not be sold. A second site of two acres behind the village school and the allotments that used to lie behind Station Row seemed almost certain to go ahead, but was delayed by the Godwin-Austen Trustees’ reluctance to sell Trust land. Plans for the Cemetery were in an advanced stage and a compulsory purchase order seemed likely until the site was ruled out by the Rural Sanitary Authority who declared it too close to existing houses. A third site was chosen to the east, bordering the railway line. These last two sites would have occupied land that now forms part of Tillingbourne Road.
Lt-Col Henry Haversham Godwin-Austen, the major landowner in the parish, then stepped in with an offer to sell the Kiln Field, which was an ideal site – away from buildings, elevated, secluded yet central. The offer was eagerly accepted and in the summer of 1885 architects Peak, Lunn and Peak of Guildford were instructed to prepare plans for an approach road, boundary walling and a chapel. In front of the field stood a dilapidated and disused pound belonging to one of Lord Grantley’s manors, which was swiftly cleared away.
The quality of the finished Cemetery, its layout, walls and chapel, was achieved only through the generosity of John Thomson Renton, the wealthiest man in the parish and the owner of Bradstone Brook. The Burial Board had funds of £1700 but it was evident that this was insufficient. The Board therefore proposed to wall and lay out only one third of the site as a Cemetery, keeping the rest in reserve and letting it out as allotments in the meantime. Mr Renton considered that this would give the Cemetery ‘an unfinished and disreputable appearance’ quite out of keeping with its sacred use. He offered to meet all outlay required beyond the £1700, to lay out the Cemetery in a befitting manner and to employ as builders Mitchell Brothers of Shalford. Edward and William Mitchell undertook to construct the chapel, lych gate, boundary walling and approach road for the sum of £1830. The plans were drawn up and the work supervised by architect Edward Lunn. By November 1886 the work was practically complete. A consecration ceremony took place at 3pm on Wednesday 22 December 1886. Only one third of the site was consecrated at that time. Another third was left unconsecrated – for nonconformist burials- and a third was held in reserve to be consecrated at a later date. Total expenditure on the Cemetery was £2776 16s, of which Mr Renton paid £1077.16s – almost 40% of the cost.
With thanks to local historian Margarete Dierden.
Work continues today on restoration of the Cemetery walls and Chapel.