Ryde cemetery is older than any of
the islands other municipal cemeteries and predates the Burial Act of 1853
by over ten years.
In September 1840, George Player, Lord of the Manor, offered Newchurch
Parish one acre of free land in Ryde.The first internment that seems to have
take place in the cemetery was in 1841and the cemetery was officially opened
in 1842 when the chapel was dedicated to St Paul was Consecrated.
The original part of the cemetery is believed to have been laid out on the
site of an old sand pit. The First Edition Ordinance Survey, surveyed in
1862-63 also shows several excavations labelled as sand pits to the north of
the cemetery.
In 1860 Ryde Town Commissioners became a constitutional burial board and
took over the cemetery. In 1861 a new pair of chapels were erected one being
Church of England and the other Non Conformist with the chapel dedicated to
St Paul now becoming the the town mortuary.
In 1862 the cemetery was enlarged and a portion of the cemetery set aside
for Roman Catholics and consecrated by Bishop Grant in 1863.
Also in 1863 the cemetery lodge was built to the design of Francis Newman.
In 1881a second large extension to the cemetery was made taking the burial
area out to Pellhurst Road to the west. by this time homes had been built on
three sides of the cemetery but the land to the south was still laid out to
allotments and nurseries.
By 1939 Adelaide Place and the Nurses Home had been built to the south
of the cemetery although virtually no change had taken place within the
cemetery except for minor path work additions
Since 1939 their have been
no real further changes to the cemeteries shape or size and at present
their is no space for new burial spaces.
