Lodge Hill Cemetery, Birmingham

Lodge Hill Cemetery is a municipal cemetery and crematorium in Selly Oak, Birmingham, England. The cemetery was first opened by King’s Norton Rural District Council in 1895, and during the 1930s became the site of Birmingham's first crematorium.

Having its main entrance in Weoley Park Road, the cemetery is bounded by Weoley Avenue, Kemberton Road and Castle Road. It can be reached by buses 21 and 44 from Birmingham, Weoley Castle and Longbridge, and number 29 runs close by. Nearby is the Weoley Castle ruin of a moated and fortified mediaeval manor house. Further down the hill the disused Selly Oak to [http://www.lapal.org/ Lapal Canal] path runs at a tangent to the site. At the bottom of the hill runs the Bourn Brook.

History

The original cemetery site of 17 acres was laid out at a cost of £15,000, which included the construction of offices and two mortuary chapels designed by F. B. Andrews. Although it was opened in January 1895, it was not until the following year that it was consecrated by the then Bishop of Worcester and Coventry, the Right Reverend John Perowne.

The cemetery passed to the care of Birmingham Corporation in 1911 with the absorption of King’s Norton and Northfield Urban District Council following the Greater Birmingham Act. It was extended in 1925 to cover just of 61 acres, and in 1934 saw the building of Birmingham’s first municipal crematorium. [Maxam, Andrew, "Selly Oak & Weoley Castle on Old Picture Postcards", Yesterday’s Warwickshire Series No. 20 (Reflections of a Bygone Age, Keyworth, 2004), [p. 13] caption to picture No. 23.] The crematorium and chapel, which first opened for use in 1937, cost £9,000 and was designed by the Arts & Crafts architect Holland W. Hobbiss. [Butler, Joanne; Baker Anne; & Southworth, Pat, "Selly Oak and Selly Park", Images of England (Tempus Publishing Limited, Stroud, 2005), p. 98.] The crematorium also has a waiting room and a special room containing a Book of Remembrance, as well as scattering lawns that were landscaped in an orchard setting with terraces. The terraces were later remodeled during the 1990s to accommodate newer kinds of memorials. Since the first cremation, which took placed on 4 October 1937, the level of cremations has risen steadily and is currently running in excess of more than 2,200 per annum. ['Lodge Hill - A Brief History', "Lodge Hill Cemetery & Crematorium", Birmingham City Council Bereavement Services' leaflet [2007] .]

As well as having sections for Church of England, Roman Catholic and Nonconformist denomination burials in general, the cemetery also has a specific Quaker section that includes graves of members of both the Lloyd and Cadbury families, together with a number removed from the burial ground of the Friends Meeting House at Bull Street in the city centre in 1966. Whilst the central crematorium building is still actively used, the cemetery itself is no longer available for new burials.

War graves

The cemetery also has a large number of war graves from both the first and second world wars. This includes a section of 500 graves of soldiers who died from their wounds at local hospitals during the Great War, and particularly those from when the University of Birmingham acted as the 1st Southern & General Military Hospital. [Dowling, Geoff; Giles, Brian; & Hayfield, Colin, "Selly Oak Past and Present" (Department of Geography, University of Birmingham, 1987), p. 18.] The section is easily identifiable by the Cross of Sacrifice and stone plinth with the words ‘Their name liveth for evermore’. But instead of the standard Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstones, the names of the dead are recorded on walls running around three sides of the plot, with each panel being represented by a number stone plaque set into the grass in the middle of the plot.

In another small section nearby, enclosed by a golden privet hedge, are buried 14 German prisoners of war also from the Great War. Each of these graves being marked by a flat memorial stone in the shape of an iron cross.

Notable burials

*Charles McCallon Alexander (1867-1920), gospel singer
*Helen Cadbury Alexander (1877-1969), authoress and heiress to the Cadbury's chocolate fortune
*Arthur Hedley (1905-1969), musician and scholar, biographer of Chopin
*James Lansdowne Norton (1869-1925), founder of the Norton Motorcycle Company
*Geoffrey Nuttall (1911-2007), congregational minister
*Alan Strode Campbell Ross (1907–1980), linguist
*Sophia Sturge (1849–1936), peace campaigner

Notable cremations

*Alec Issigonis (1906-1988), designer of the Austin Mini
*Anthony John Miles (1955-2001), chess grandmaster

References

Bibliography

* ISBN 0-7093-0188X

External links

* [http://forum.birminghamhistory.co.uk/showthread.php?t=8116 Surnames associated with burials]
* [http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/GenerateContent?CONTENT_ITEM_ID=6629&CONTENT_ITEM_TYPE=0&MENU_ID=483 Birmingham City Council page on the Cemetery]
* [http://www.streetmap.co.uk/newmap.srf?x=403035&y=282555&z=3&sv=403035,282555&st=4&ar=Y&mapp=newmap.srf&searchp=newsearch.srf&dn=790 Streetmap location map]
* [http://www.lapal.org/e-ph-2.html Lodge Hill section of Selly Oak to Lapal canal restoration project]