Street Tales: Bellar Gate Rest Garden

illustration: Mike Driver

Originally known as the Middle Burial Ground (Burial Ground No.1), Barker Gate Burial Ground became a rest garden after the site ceased to be used for burials. In the last ten years, most of it has been replaced by an ugly-looking car park and the rest has been left neglected and forgotten. While most of the gravestones were removed by the Council, a few remain propped up against the wall - quite an eerie sight when parking your car. There’s also a small plaque on a wall in the corner of a little patch of grass, tucked away in Nottingham's Lace Market.

The history of the burial ground can be traced back to 1742, when a piece of ground on Barker Gate was acquired from Evelyn, Duke of Kingston, for the sum of ten shillings. This, the first of the Barker Gate burial grounds, became known locally as Middle Bury. The deed was enrolled in the Court of Chancery and lodged in the hands of George Gregory Esq. The land had seven houses fronting onto Bellar Gate, with early pictures showing the Duke’s home, Pierrepont House on Stoney Street, with formal gardens sloping down the hill to Bellar Gate.

In 1827, there was an incident involving body snatchers or “resurrection men” who attempted to despatch two corpses to London [see LeftLion issue #62]. Great concern was raised, and families began frantically digging up the graves of deceased loved ones to ascertain whether or not the remains remained. It was discovered that thirty bodies had been stolen.

In the 1830s, the burial ground was used to accommodate the victims of a Cholera epidemic which struck Nottingham. In the outbreak of the virus, 330 people died in our city, including many in the Narrow Marsh and Broad Marsh areas - some of the worst slums in Europe.

In 1883, the demolition of two of the walls for the building of St Mary’s School on Barker Gate was permitted. The school was erected in 1799 by the General Baptists and was originally built as a Baptist chapel, but the architect Thomas Chambers Hine converted it in 1886. The school still stands today, but remains empty and derelict, in a rather poor state.

The burial ground eventually closed in 1897, after which the Council maintained the rest garden under a perpetual licence from the Chancellor of Southwell Diocese. Middle Bury was described in 1921 as an eyesore with irregular wastes of trodden earth, and so it was paved over to become the playground for school children and for those who lived in local, overcrowded housing. In the post-war period, St Mary’s choirboys used the playground after practice.

Nottingham Hidden History website