THE APPEARANCE of the town cemetery in past times owed a great deal to the dedication of one man who spent over 40 years of his working life keeping it in order.  

It was opened in 1855 on four acres of land in South Road to make room for more burials because the churchyard adjoining the Abbey Church was full and the first supervisor was appointed by the newly constituted Bourne Burial Board in February that year but he was known simply as the gatekeeper because he was responsible for opening and closing the grounds.  

He was Charles Christopher who was not paid a salary but was allowed to live with his family rent free at the stone lodge house (pictured above) that had been incorporated in the original design for the cemetery chapel by the architect Edward Browning and built at the same time, his only other duty being to ensure that the grounds were not damaged by intruders. 

John Peacock was appointed cemetery keeper in December 1878 but by this time, the duties had been increased to take in grave digging and maintenance of the grounds. Nevertheless, he tackled the job with zeal and enthusiasm and over the next four decades organised more than 3,000 funerals and was therefore responsible for the bulk of the burials that took place there during the 19th century. This would have been a considerable physical task because the average grave usually takes two men around four hours to complete. 

It was his habit, while digging and arranging graves ready for interment, to decorate them with an array of foliage such as ivy and laurel and seasonal flowers including lilies, daffodils and chrysanthemums. Descriptions of this artistry survive in the obituaries reported by the local newspapers of the many important townspeople he was called on to bury. One of them was Henry Bott (1810-88), landlord of the Angel Hotel for fifty years, churchwarden and freemason, and an account of his funeral reflects the grandeur and solemnity of the occasion: “The entire town mourned his passing and shops and businesses closed while his funeral was taking place. After a service at the Abbey Church, principal tradesmen and fellow members of the Hereward Lodge of Freemasons joined the imposing funeral cortege as it moved down South Street on its way to the cemetery where he was buried in a graveside ceremony and his body now lies under a grand marble cross mounted on a triple plinth.” 

John Peacock has no such illusions about his own importance and he left instructions to his friends and family not to do the same for him because he desired a plain funeral and a simple headstone, the actual spot of his own burial near to the southern boundary being selected by himself shortly before he died on 21st October 1922, aged 83.  

It is therefore appropriate that he is buried in the very place to which he devoted so many years of his life together with his wife, Jane, who followed him on 2nd November 1933. During his lifetime, it was his greatest joy to keep the cemetery spick and span and he was fond of describing it as "one of the beauty spots of the locality". 

There have been changes at the cemetery since John Peacock’s day, notably his home at the lodge house which was demolished circa 1960 and replaced by a modern bungalow. There has also been a decline in many of the tombstones and a photograph which survives from 1900 reveals their pristine condition because none of them were then more than 50 years old. Today, wind and weather have taken their toll and the inscriptions on many are unreadable while others have either fallen over or are leaning through soil subsidence and neglect. 

An example of how badly some have deteriorated was revealed in October 2002. A headstone in the older part of the cemetery that had toppled some years before was still lying on its face and as it detracted from the appearance of a new grave being dug nearby, relatives asked if it could be restored to give the spot a more respectable appearance. It was a hard task because these old stone memorials are extremely heavy but cemetery staff managed to lift it and place it back in its original position but they made a startling discovery when the front was revealed because it looked as good as new.  

The memorial had been made in 1889 for a local man who had died that year. However, there may have been a fault in the stone because in the subsequent years, it had cracked near the base and toppled over, leaving the engraved side face down on the earth. This had probably occurred fifty years before, perhaps even longer, because the back of the memorial that had been exposed to the elements had become eroded and covered with lichen but the front when lifted was as sharp and as clear as the day it had been carved a hundred years before. The grave was obviously one that had been dug by John Peacock who would also have supervised the erection of the tombstone at a time when every inscription could be easily read.  

The cemetery is now much larger than in those early days. In 1904, it was extended up to 5½ acres and in 1999 when land for further burial plots was exhausted, a further two acres were added beyond the original red brick boundary wall and this is known today as the new cemetery. More than 10,000 burials have now been carried out and staff continue to tend the grounds in the same efficient manner, keeping the grass, shrubbery, borders and trees in good order, and are responsible for digging the graves although some are now carried out by contractors. 

Nevertheless, John Peacock would be gratified by the present state of the cemetery which remains a most attractive haven of peace and tranquillity, notably through the work of later managers such as Peter Ellis who won the Cemetery of the Year award in 2002 and his successor Alan Townsend who repeated this success in 2006 and therefore continues a tradition that began 150 years ago.