Allerton Cemetery marks 100 years

Allerton Cemetery

Allerton Cemetery in south Liverpool marks 100 years of service this year.

Over 74,000 burials have taken place at the cemetery located between Woolton Road and Hillfoot Avenue, one of three operating in Liverpool.

The Cemetery includes Church of England, Roman Catholic, General Nonconformist, Jewish and Muslim sections, plus Liverpool's only natural burial area.

The site, formerly farmland, was laid out in 1906.

The Church of England section was consecrated in September 1909 the first burial took place in late December of that year.

Martin Doherty, who looks after Allerton Cemetery for Liverpool City Council, explains that the layout was European influenced, "A lot of cemeteries for that period were based on the design of a French cemetery Père Lachaise, which is close to Paris," Martin says.

"Allerton cemetery is designed around a central axis, you can turn it round and it's almost symmetrical.

"It was almost designed like a park.

"Victorian and Edwardian attitudes to cemeteries were very different to what they are today.

"People would almost pay social visits to cemeteries and they'd treat it like a park."

Abundance of wildlife

The cemetery was influenced by France.

The natural burial area is located in woodland amongst mature trees where burials take place in biodegradable coffins with graves marked by inscribed markers.

So families can be assured remains won't be disturbed, graves in this area aren't intended to be reused.

Today, attitudes to public burial grounds have changed and Liverpool City Council's future plans for Allerton reflect that, "We're trying to shift the emphasis away from being a park to a place where people can visit and pay their respects to their loved ones," explains Martin Doherty.

For Martin one of the pleasures of Allerton's location is the abundance of wildlife in and around the cemetery, "One of the first things that becomes apparent about Allerton Cemetery is the vast range of trees here," he says.

"Unfortunately no one has ever done a tree survey, there must be about 80 to 100 trees here ranging from traditional oak to imported trees.

"There's also a lot of wildlife, vast numbers of hare, foxes and many varieties of birds."

Almost a hundred years after the first burial took place at Allerton the cemetery, unlike many of similar age across the UK, is still taking new burials, "In other parts of the country local authorities have problems with a shortage of burial land and in London they're even reusing burial plots," Martin Doherty explains.

"We don't have that problem in Liverpool, we've still got plenty of land, particularly in the south of the city.

"We've recently reclaimed land towards the rear Hillfoot end of the cemetery that within the next 20 years will be used for burial space again."