The tombstones, crucifixes, angels and inscriptions slowly emerge from the creeping ivy and smothering foliage as if in a fairy story.
What looks like a bank of overgrown shrubs becomes a row of stone memorials, marking lives, families, connections, history.
“I just find it really satisfying to clean them up, research people’s lives and find all the stories about them,” says volunteer Danielle Wilson.
Ocklynge Cemetery in Eastbourne Old Town, on a large sloping site looking west towards the South Downs, is the final resting place for at least 20,000 people.
Hundreds upon hundreds of headstones and crosses are dotted among the long, late summer grass which sways in the breeze.
A group from the Friends of Ocklynge Cemetery, a dedicated band of volunteers, are carefully clearing overgrown plots and revealing forgotten graves and monuments, often researching the stories of people’s lives as they go.
The site is maintained by Eastbourne Borough Council but contractors do not have the resources to painstakingly clear individual areas by hand.
The Friends of Ocklynge Cemetery
The Friends were established a year ago and have been clearing areas of graves in twice-weekly sessions since early August, when they secured public liability insurance.
Every cleared grave is photographed and put on findagrave.com, a huge global database owned by genealogy website ancestry.com, which helps people find their relatives’ resting place.
Danielle (above), originally from Texas, has lived in the UK for 52 years. She has uploaded nearly 1,000 photos of gravestones from Ocklynge to the website since earlier this summer.
A bookkeeper, she lives in Pevensey Bay and has been researching her own family tree for the past two decades.
Danielle says of the cemetery work: “It is giving back to the genealogy community. I contacted the great, great granddaughter, who lives in the United States, of one person. She was so appreciative of the information I found out – and then did me a favour by getting the record of my parents’ marriage from the City of Kansas for me.”
Among many notable graves is one, pictured above, designed by renowned architect and artist Charles Rennie Macintosh (1868 – 1928) for Lt Col Oswald Fitzgerald, who died in 1916, aged 40.
He was on HMS Hampshire when it was sunk by a mine at Scapa Flow, Orkney, bound for Russia. Lord Kitchener, the secretary of state for war, for whom he was a close aide, was on board and among the 736 people on board who died.
There were only 12 survivors and just two bodies were recovered: Lt Col FitzGerald was one of them. His funeral was at All Saint’s Church in Eastbourne.
The tallest and most striking monument is an angel pointing skywards on a large Italian marble vault in the centre of the site, pictured below.
It is the burial place of Charles Ernest Rube (1852 – 1914), his son Ernest (1882 – 1909), who died in India aged 27, and his wife Kate Rube (1856 – 1935).
Wealthy Mr Rube was reputed to have had links to the de Beer diamond merchants and the memorial was said to be positioned so the angel could be seen from the family home in Meads, across what would have been farmland at the time.
It was said to have cost £2,000 when the vault was built in 1914. That is the equivalent to nearly £300,000 today.
Ocklynge, which has been a cemetery since 1865, is now closed to new burials but family plots can be re-opened for burials.
However, graves have apparently been re-used in the past, not necessarily for the same family. The Friends group found evidence of 13 bodies in one grave, all of whom were children.
Family Roots, the Eastbourne District Family History Society, surveyed the entire cemetery between 1996 and 2006 and produced a huge spreadsheet of the graves and names, which helps the group keep track.
‘It’s not just a stone with names and dates, they are people who lived full lives’
One of the gravestones uncovered this week under the trees backing onto the grounds of Motcombe Infant School is a large memorial to writer Jonathan Sturges (1864 – 1911), who was born in Paris and was a US citizen.
He was a graduate of Princeton University, New Jersey, and his friends included the writer Henry James and artist John Singer Sargent.
Retired local authority manager Julia Kirwan (above) has been clearing the area near his grave and is new to the group. She enjoys researching the people when she gets home.
“I am very interested in genealogy and family history. Being a keen amateur genealogist, I spend a lot of time in cemeteries and am always grateful when you can find a grave easily, so if there’s anything I can do to help…” she says.
“I also like finding out about people’s backgrounds. It’s about bringing that person to life. It makes me feel good – it’s not just a stone with names and dates, they are people who lived full lives and it’s nice to acknowledge that.”
Shirley Moth (above), an NHS practice manager, is one of the group’s founders and the membership secretary.
She made it her mission to find the family behind a distinctive ‘fairy grave’ on the highest point of the cemetery.
It’s a circular memorial, originally copper, which is intricately decorated with fairies and woodland animals with the name Tanner enscribed on a tablet, pictured above.
She discovered it was Ann ‘Nancy’ Tanner (1859 – 1934) and traced her great granddaughter and great niece. “It was great – they were so pleased!” says Shirley.
‘This is a dedication to the dead’
Shirley’s brother Lionel Moth (below) is also a volunteer, interested in the environmental aspects of the cemetery. He retired as an engineer and chooses to come to both the Wednesday and Friday sessions.
“It’s perfect for me – it’s outdoors, there’s fresh air and exercise, and it’s interesting. It’s always good to see the actual stone when it’s uncovered. It’s also good to make the place looked after.”
Husband and wife Alison and Donald Selmes (below) clip back large overhanging branches through which peep tantalising glimpses of more headstones and the edge of a stone scroll.
Alison studied ancient history at university and Donald is a retired management consultant – they signed up when the Friends started.
“For the last 40 years, we’ve been researching family trees. We also live nearby and walk through the cemetery regularly – I thought it looked really awful,” Alison says.
“Doing this is also actually dedication to the dead,” she adds. Alison is also on the archaeology committee at the Eastbourne Natural History and Archaeology Society and worked on a Saxon burial project near St Ann’s Road in Eastbourne many years ago.
The six volunteers finish their work on a hot September afternoon, thankful for the shade of the trees, satisfied to allow more lives to see the light of day after decades hidden in the undergrowth.
Shirley says: “I go home and start researching family trees – it’s just fascinating!”
Comments are welcome. They are pre-moderated and may be edited for clarity and to avoid potential libel.
:: This is a not-for-profit company and this kind of original journalism takes time to research and write. I want to keep it free to read for 14,700 readers so far – so please donate, with a monthly membership ideally. To read who I am and why I’m doing this, click here
