On a sad day 25 years ago the gates of the historic Arnos Vale Cemetery, final resting place of nearly 300,000 of Bristol’s citizens, were about to be locked forever.
Amid news that the private owner, Bristol General Cemetery Company, had plans to sell off a large chunk of the land for housing, relatives of people buried in the badly-neglected graveyard were heartbroken and outraged by a call to dig up their loved ones’ bodies and rebury them somewhere else.
Visitors were greeted by a typed notice from chairman Tony Towner in March 1998, headed “Exhumation - a sad necessity”, telling them that the company had no money to maintain the cemetery and would be closing down. He said that, if people didn’t like it, they could opt to have their family members removed and interred elsewhere at a cost of around £2,000, blaming the graveyard’s demise on cut-price competition from two city council-run crematoria.
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A quiet campaign had already been running for more than a decade to improve the state of the 45-acre site where headstones, buildings and important memorials had been left to crumble. But Mr Towner, whose company bought the cemetery business in 1985 for just £30,000, turned down all offers of voluntary help to tidy the place up and it became increasingly overgrown with brambles and weeds, making some areas impossible to reach.
It had been a long and sad decline for what was - and still is - considered one of the most impressive cemeteries in the country. The Bristol General Cemetery Company was set up in 1836 by a group of businessmen to meet the city's desperate need for more burial space. The hillside land at Brislington was bought the following year and the cemetery opened in 1840.
Designed as an elegant and peaceful garden of remembrance, surrounded by steep terraced slopes, it was planted with trees and shrubs and its two mortuary chapels and gate lodges were built in neo-classical style. Thousands of burials followed and, with the 50,000-grave cemetery filling up fast, in 1928 the owners opened the city’s first crematorium.
However, by the early 1970s the business was in trouble. It was bought by Bristol investment firm Arnsec, which went into receivership a few years later. Sold on to another firm for whom Mr Towner worked as a consultant, when they went bankrupt he acquired all the shares and by 1987 was talking to council planners about lucrative redevelopment.
His shocking exhumation notice stirred up a storm of anger and emotion amongst local people - especially those who’d paid thousands of pounds for 99-year leases allowing them to visit the graves. Within days a petition was launched and hundreds of furious protesters marched to the cemetery to confront Mr Towner, vowing to fight the closure and any plans for the cemetery being redeveloped.
Even after he agreed to leave the cemetery gates unlocked 24 hours a day, the furious crowd demanded answers about his future plans, refusing to abandon their loved ones. Police were called to calm the situation, but the battle for Arnos Vale Cemetery had begun in earnest and its own army of campaigners was born, backed by the Bristol Post and working alongside the existing Friends of Arnos Vale Cemetery pressure group.
Volunteers took charge of cleaning up and keeping the cemetery safe, camping out to man the gates and padlock them each evening - sterling efforts that went on for months while the dispute rumbled on. Mr Towner even took protesters to court to try and evict them from the land but the judge threw the case out.
By the end of 1998, Bristol City Council were forging ahead with plans to purchase the cemetery and hand it over to the charitable trust that runs it today, while an order was made to allow them to carry out essential repairs and charge Mr Towner for the work and the Bristol Post stepped in to save important registers in danger of being dumped in a skip.
The campaigners were victorious but it took several more years of legal wrangling and a compulsory purchase order in 2003 to secure a positive future for Arnos Vale Cemetery.
Following a £5m restoration, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, the historic cemetery reopened its gates in 2010 as a tranquil place of rest and reflection for all, with a cafe, gift shop and guided walks.
It’s also a haven for wildlife and even a spectacular venue for weddings, and an important part of Bristol’s history, backed by generous volunteers and donors who continue to support a much-loved gem in the heart of the city. What is certain is that it wouldn’t be here today without the campaigners who refused to abandon or dig up their dead.
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