St Sepulchre's Cemetery

St Sepulchre's Cemetery is a historic cemetery located on Walton Street, Jericho, central Oxford, England. The cemetery was opened in 1848 as a cemetery for the Oxford parishes of St Giles, St Michael, and St Mary Magdalen, and the district chapelry of St Paul's Church (which included outlying parts of St Thomas's parish before St Barnabas Church was built). The cemetery was created because all the other existing Oxford cemeteries were overcrowded after many hundreds of years of burials; two other cemeteries, Osney Cemetery and Holywell Cemetery, were also opened at the same time, to cater to the other eight Oxford parishes. In 1855, new burials were forbidden in all Oxford churchyards, with burials only to take place in existing vaults. However, this order seems to have been ignored; by 1887 the cemetery was supposedly so full that bones were littered between graves. The last new grave was dug in 1944, as St Sepulchre's finally stopped accepting new burials in 1945. The gatehouse lodge, which is owned by Oxford City Council, was let out to tenants, and the chapel was demolished in 1970. In 2004, St Sepulchre's was added to the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. The cemetery was formerly surrounded on two sides by the Eagle Ironworks, which shut down in 2005 and has since been replaced by apartments. The cemetery is listed Grade II on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.