The churchyard

A PLOT OF secluded land to the south of the Abbey Church is used as the churchyard, shaded by ancient chestnuts and lined with slate and granite tombstones. It has been in use since the earliest times but contains barely 300 graves yet the number of people who died in Bourne in past centuries are numbered in their thousands, leaving us with the mystery of where they were all buried.

Overcrowding was evident well before records began, even as early as the 14th century when bodies were buried one upon the other. Historians have also discovered that even in a small village of say, 250 inhabitants, several thousand people died and were buried each century and in the average country churchyard there are about 20,000 bodies under the soil with the result that the ground has risen by as much as three feet often giving the appearance that the church has sunk into the ground.

Parish and other records suggest that the number of burials in Bourne is at least 30,000 and so this explanation would appear to be appropriate with our churchyard which has also risen above the level of the church by more than two feet, a height not quite so dramatic as others elsewhere in the country but then this is fen soil and the land is also liable to sink, thus reducing the impact.

By the mid-19th century, interments were reported to be two and three on top of each other and the churchyard could not cope with further burials. In accordance with the Burial Act of 1855, a new cemetery was opened in South Road, thus resolving the shortage of burial space.

The churchyard today