West Boldon, Quaker Burial Ground

HER Number:
888

District:
S Tyneside

Site Name:
West Boldon, Quaker Burial Ground

Place:
West Boldon

Map Sheet:
NZ36SE

Class:
Religious Ritual and Funerary

Site Type: Broad:
Inhumation Cemetery

Site Type: Specific:
Friends Burial Ground

General Period:
Post Medieval

Specific Period:
C17

Form of Evidence:
Documentary Evidence

Description:
In process of time, when frds increased, the Sunderland Meeting's burying ground was usually at West Bowden in ye garden of Christopher Trewhitt, where...a great many of our frds were buried, as also from Shields. The distance from Sunderland proved too inconvenient, and in 1670 the Friends acquired the first of their burial grounds in Sunderland (HER no. 64). The earliest reference found to a burial at Boldon is 1657, the latest 1670. Phillips could not locate this cemetery. The Ordnance Survey base its location on a published letter from Rev. J.T. Brown, who said that in the extreme north-west corner of the garden of the old hall 11 skeletons in soft wood, unmarked coffins were dug up in c. 1899. He had learned that this was traditionally the site of the Quaker burying ground.

Easting:
3501

Northing:
6098

Grid Reference:
NZ35016098

Lats/Lons:

Sources:
<< HER 888 >> M. Phillips, 1894, Notes on some forgotten Burying Grounds of the Society of Friends, Archaeologia Aeliana, 2, XVI, 198-202 Rev. J.T. Brown, 1901, Discoveries at West Boldon,Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle, 2, IX (for 1899-1901), 26 Ordnance Survey archaeological record cards, JHO, 1952, 17th cent. Quaker burial ground (site) M. Phillips, 1917, Additional isolated burials, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle, 3, VII (for 1915-16), p. 179