illustration: Mike Driver
You may know the Church (Rock) Cemetery on Mansfield Road pretty well – especially if your teenage years were spent browsing the black eyeliner aisle while listening to Cradle of Filth. But relatively few people know that at the top of North Sherwood Street, there’s a Jewish burial ground, which once served Nottingham’s Jewish community.
Under the date 26 February 1823, the Nottingham Date Book describes the ceremony of “laying the first stone of the enclosure wall of the Jewish Burial Ground, Sherwood Street (North Sherwood Street). The Mayor was invited to lay the first stone of the enclosure wall. Mr Oldknow, accompanied by other members of the Corporate body, accordingly attended for the purpose. The ceremony was very impressive. Moses Levi, the Rabbi, attired in his sacerdotal robes, at the head of his brethren, went three times around the ground, repeating the 91st Psalm, in Hebrew. The 133rd Psalm, and prayers for the Royal family, the Mayor, the Corporation, and Burgesses, and the descendants of Israel, succeeded. Mr Nathan then thanked the Mayor and the Corporation for their liberal gift, and Mr Ald Barber, who laid the second stone, made a short reply and the ceremony was concluded”.
James Orange (History and Antiquities of Nottingham, 1840, p.815) refers to the site as “given to David Solomons and Sixteen others, in trust, for the purpose of the sepulture of persons of the Jews persuasion by the Corporation, CL Morley, Esq, Mayor 1824.”
After the opening of the cemetery, it was walled around and a small building was erected overlooking it, for £100 – so, adjusting for inflation, erm, a bit more than that nowadays. It’s said that buildings overlooking Jewish cemeteries are there for the purpose of watching the corpse of the recently departed, according to the Jewish custom of observing eight days after the internment.
The burial ground (200 square yards in total) was used until the 1860s when it became too full, and a larger cemetery was needed. Thus, a second cemetery was built on the corner of Hardy Street and Southey Street that served the Jewish community until the mid-twentieth century. Since then, part of the Wilford Hill cemetery has been used. Meanwhile, North Sherwood Street’s Jewish Burial Ground, like many of the pubs that till recently peppered the same stretch, is sadly disused and forgotten.
For more on Nottingham history, check out the Nottingham Hidden History website.
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