THE history and heritage of Southend cemeteries will be preserved thanks to a timely cash boost.

Blade Education has received a £9,400 grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund to form a new charity, the Friends of Southend Cemeteries.

Echo:

Rich heritage - the £9,400 grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund to form a new charity, the Friends of Southend Cemeteries

The friends will work with community groups, including the Southend Branch of the Essex Society for Family History, the Leigh Society and the Leigh-on-Sea Branch of the Royal British Legion, to form a board of trustees and a volunteer group.

The group will work with the heritage groups, schools and Southend Council to enhance care for 50 acres of cemeteries.

It will record and share the heritage of those buried in Sutton Road Cemetery, North Road Burial Ground in Southend and Leigh Cemetery, training volunteers in heritage conservation and recording.

A spokeswoman for Blade Education, said: “The cemeteries hold the key to exploring the heritage of those that lived in Southend and Rochford for the last 130 years.

“With more than 100,000 people buried within their quiet hedgerows from the great Benjamin Waugh, founder of the NSPCC, through to Elizabeth Bannester, Southend’s first female borough councillor and inspired by the urban planner and author John Claudius Loudon, these are spaces that tell the story of grief in the Victorian era and how people adapted during the terrible conflicts of the World Wars.”

Blade Education will hold “Pop-Up Cafe” days in the Dissenters Chapel at Sutton Road Cemetery to encourage the community to take part in the conservation of the cemeteries.

There are two chapels at Sutton Road, the first is a consecrated Church of England chapel and is still used for burial services but has since been superseded by more modern facilities at the crematorium across the road.

The second is the un-consecrated Non-Reformed chapel that in times past was set aside for religious services other than Anglican. The Dissenter’s Chapel is currently used around once per year but it is hoped this can be increased.

Joanna Ruffle, strategic director for transformation at Southend Council, said: “We are proud to be able to support this charity set up by Blade Education which will enable the local community to gain a greater understanding of the local cemeteries and the history behind them.”

Leigh town councillor Carole Mulroney is a member of the Leigh Society. She said: “The Leigh Society is very pleased to be a part of this project. We have dealt a lot with remembrance over the last few years and it has served to make us realise that cemeteries are important places and need to be cherished by the community as places of reflection, oases of calm and the holders of a wonderful wealth of history.

“As an amateur family and local historian I am keen that this project will nurture these areas and draw out the history all those within them who should be remembered by us all. I can’t wait to get."