Operated by East Boldre Community Stores Limited.
Community Benefit Society, number 8481
Graveyard Plan
There is now no visible trace of the 500+ graves on the site, apart from one tomb and 54 headstones, which are tucked away in an overgrown corner. The headstones were moved to the rear boundary by the Baptist Church before the hall was built in the early 1990s.
The plan shows the original positions of the gravestones, recorded around 1990 before they were moved. It reveals that the graves were arranged in regular rows across the burial ground. Although the stones were numbered, the list linking each number to an individual grave was lost.
However, an excerpt discovered among the chapel deeds identified the original positions of 13 headstones. It came from correspondence between the church and the Home Office seeking permission to build the hall on the burial ground. The Home Office did not retain the full correspondence, so the remainder of the list appears to have been lost.
The burial ground was originally rectangular and had become almost full by 1889. Following a vote by church members, it was extended into the gardens of two neighbouring cottages, which the church had owned since 1835. This created the irregular shape of the present site, with most of the later burials likely to have been in the extended, dog-leg section.
Archaeological Evidence
During the demolition of the church hall and construction of the shop’s car park, Wessex Archaeology monitored the groundworks to record any archaeology uncovered and to ensure that any human remains were dealt with legally and respectfully.
Fortunately, none of the 500+ burials were disturbed. However, shallow excavations for the car park foundations revealed six previously unrecorded grave cuts. These are difficult to see with the naked eye, but the backfill of the graves appeared as a subtly different colour from the surrounding undisturbed soil. They are outlined in blue in the photograph.
The graves form a row close to the original path and appear not to have been marked by headstones.
Graveyard Interpretation
Thanks to funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, we have installed two interpretation panels in the graveyard.
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Remembering those buried here: One panel commemorates the people known to be buried on the site, most of whom have no surviving headstone. It celebrates their lives while reminding visitors that the shop’s garden remains a graveyard.
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Exploring the site’s heritage: The second panel introduces local people and visitors to the history and archaeology of the site, bringing together the information and discoveries outlined on this page.
