This article was created by Liz Dicker, from her research, for the Sid Vale Association spring 2025 magazine, at. Please do not copy it without her permission.
As a young medical student the Medical Officer of Health for Sidmouth in East Devon made the national papers for his heroic actions in a train crash rescuing and treating the casualties. However, in 1875, Doctor Pullin now an established member of the town’s Local Board like his physician forebears, was to raise tempers to fever pitch in creating a scandalous slur on the town’s reputation.
It started when the Local Board, the forerunner of today’s Town Council, requested a report on the state of health of the population of the parish. No doubt the Board were expecting a result that would demonstrate the benefits of the town’s healthful seaside location and its refreshing maritime air to attract even more residents to the already lively society of titled and prominent people.
What it got was an account of a drinking water supply polluted by sewage, seawater, dead donkeys and decompositional effluent from the parish churchyard. That the worst of the water supply was that provided for working people living in the lower part of the town moved no one to action. What stirred opinion may well have been the chance to create a cemetery in the town now made possible by the law passed in 1857 removing the monopoly held by parish churches of sole responsibility for burials and allow the creation of a cemetery wherever there was a demand. This allowed Catholics, Jews and denominational churches the right to be buried in land of their own choosing.
Under pressure the Local Board handed over responsibility for this remarkable outcome to the Vestry Board, the parish church’s administration group, to limit burials to the remaining spaces in the graveyard and to lead the creation of a new cemetery for the town.
The report was published in the Sidmouth Journal and an enquiry came from P H Holland of the Burial Acts Office of the Home Office, to whom a copy of the Journal containing the report had been sent, informing the Vicar of imminent instructions for an inspection visit.
Inspectors came, made their report and an order was given that the parish church’s graveyard must close in three and a half years’ time when the remaining space would be used up. Conditions of burial were also required to counteract the seepage of decompositional effluent from burials.
In 1877, at a meeting of the Vestry Board on 2nd of July, chaired by the Vicar H G C Clements, it was agreed that a Burial Board should be convened forthwith to take forward the creation of a cemetery on suitable land for the continued burial of deceased persons in Sidmouth. The Vicar would chair the new board and be assisted by eight members including Dr Pullin and the local funeral director.
At the first monthly meeting it was agreed that three to four acres were required and approaches made to land owners willing to sell.
Mr Farrant’s land with its corn harvest carried away was described as ‘any ground more picturesque is not to be seen, with an easier slope the beauty and suitability immediately evident.’ Five hundred and ninety-six pounds purchased the land.
Ten architects submitted designs and costings with the successful plan costed at £1456. A £130 bid was accepted for the making of the approach road and drains and £48 for a boundary wall.
The Secretary of State who was monitoring progress approved the division of land as to consecrated and non-consecrated land, these sections being Anglican, Jewish, Catholic and Dissenters.
In March 1978 A loan offer from the West of England Insurance Company of £2500 at 4½% payable by annual instalments over 30 years was accepted. A further £500 would be added to this sum in the late stages of the project.
The completed chapels were connected by an arched roof supporting an ornate wooden bell tower. Stained glass windows in the Anglican chapel were paid for by generous benefactors.
The grounds were laid out with numbered iron markers for every grave space. Some of these markers can still be found in situ where gravestones were unaffordable for some. Relatives of the deceased could choose their loved one’s space.
Consecration day was set for 16th December 1878 at 12pm. The Sidmouth Journal described the day as: ‘A cold spell of weather made the day most trying and slippery dangerous for street and road locomotion.’ The Bishop of Exeter arrived at Sidmouth Railway Station together with a small entourage and held a service in the Anglican Chapel before processing to a tent in the centre of the Anglican section where he consecrated the grounds.
On Sunday the 19th January at 12pm the first interments took place and by the time appointed 2 or 3 hundred people were present in an ‘extremely cold and piercing wind.’ Two burials, by coincidence close together, were carried out at the same time. Mrs Dean in number 62 lived in the smarter western side of the town and Mrs Salter in 60 was of fisherfolk stock in the eastern side.
Today Sidmouth Cemetery has expanded into many more acres around the first wheat field and is close to being full once more. The initial burial ground is now a wild life area supporting a habitat of grasses, flowering plants, birds and mammals. Rumours abound of badgers and foxes and of bats roosting in the bell tower.