Cemeteries and crematoria in Brighton and Hove

Many were established in the mid-19th century, a time in which the Victorian "cult of death" encouraged extravagant, expensive memorials set in carefully cultivated landscapes which were even recommended as tourist attractions.

[14] The Marquess of Bristol owned much of the land surrounding the old farm, and in 1856 he gave the Brighton Extra Mural Company 8 acres (3.2 ha) adjoining the northeast side of the existing cemetery.

In early 1856 they had the chance to buy 30 acres (12 ha) of land opposite the Extra Mural Cemetery, on the east side of Lewes Road, for £7,500 (£885,000 as of 2025),[16] but the Vestry again refused—despite the recommendations of the newly formed Brighton Burial Board.

[21] Hove Borough Council bought more land north of the Old Shoreham Road directly opposite the original cemetery in 1923: the 20.8-acre (8.4 ha) site, on sloping ground, cost £6,450 (£465,000 as of 2025).

[10] Actress and singer Anna Maria Crouch has an elaborate, Grade II-listed, Coade stone table tomb with a carved memorial tablet, friezes with foliage patterns and Vitruvian scrolls, putti and a Classical-style urn.

[10][46][47] Sake Dean Mahomed (1749–1851), an Indian travel writer and entrepreneur who introduced "shampooing" massages to England when he opened a bath-house in Brighton in 1815—and later provided his services to Kings George IV and William IV—is buried nearby in another Grade II-listed tomb.

[52] Publisher and author Sir Richard Phillips is buried in the western extension; his tomb is included in English Heritage's Grade II listing of the nearby burial vaults.

[58][60] The churchyard at St Margaret's Church in Rottingdean "still largely retains its village character",[61] and has been extended several times in the 19th and 20th centuries as the settlement has expanded and become part of the wider urban area.

[61] Burials in the churchyard include Edward Burne-Jones, his wife Georgiana (née MacDonald), their author granddaughter Angela Thirkell, the music hall actor G. H. Elliott, and the world renowned blues guitarist Gary Moore (died 2011).

Two yew trees among the graves survive from the time of the original medieval church,[65] and the churchyard also has a Grade II-listed[66] flint-built wellhouse with a donkey-wheel for drawing water from the ground.

"[68] For such a large and populous parish (Portslade was more important than neighbouring Hove for much of its history),[30] it covers a small area; bodies appear to have been buried on top of each other in several places, especially near the chancel where the ground rises substantially.

[71] Burials include local inventor Magnus Volk, master builder and Daylight Saving Time pioneer William Willett, and women's rights campaigner and University of Sussex benefactor Helena Normanton.

It stood on the south side of North Road,[76] and the high-density slum areas of Durham and Petty France developed around it after Brighton railway station was opened nearby in 1840.

Designed in 1893 by Lainson and Son and built by the Garrett building firm, the chapel is a red-brick octagonal structure in the Queen Anne style, with a tiled turreted roof and corbel-topped piers at each corner, a pedimented entrance and arched windows set below recessed panels.

[91] Hyam Lewis, originally a swordsmith, became a Brighton Town Commissioner in 1813; he was the first Jew in England to hold such a high-ranking municipal position, and he served in several areas of civic life.

[15] It opened at the height of the Victorian era, when people "made a cult of death" and favoured large funerals and substantial, ornate tombs;[2] and many famous and important Brightonians were buried there.

A large Gothic Revival Portland stone and marble mausoleum with granite columns and carved spandrels, resembling a dovecote, holds the remains of John Collingwood, who died in 1861.

Frederick William Robertson, the acclaimed theologian and preacher who held the perpetual curacy of Brighton's Holy Trinity Church and enjoyed walking in the churchyard at Hove, was buried in the third tomb when he died aged 37 in 1853.

John Leopold Denman, a prolific local architect who specialised in commercial buildings,[104] executed the curious cruciform design with a domed top and stone walls.

Cordy Burrows's tomb is a flat plinth of grey marble with an iron chain around it;[110] Goulty, minister at the Nonconformist Union Chapel, has an obelisk-style memorial in the unconsecrated southwest section.

[113] Dr William Russ Pugh, an English doctor who emigrated to Australia and pioneered general anaesthesia there before returning to Brighton, is buried in a Gothic-arcaded tomb nearby.

Erredge, the first to write a history of Brighton,[115] and the Royal Pavilion's first manager and curator Francis De Val (who helped to recover many original fixtures from Kensington Palace, where they had been taken), also have tombs nearby.

[114] James Knowles kcvo, an architect who laid out much of the West Brighton estate in Hove and later became a successful journalist and founder of the Metaphysical Society, has a memorial stone on the wall dividing the Extra Mural and Woodvale Cemeteries.

[132] Two Victoria Cross winners were also cremated here: Major General William George Walker (1863–1936) and Captain Philip John Gardner, late Royal Tank Regiment (1914–2003).

Following newspaper reports that a Black Mass had been held at the ceremony, the council moved to ban the practice at the chapel:[134] councillors described the events as "a desecration of consecrated ground" and stated that they had offended the whole town.

[140] A deal to buy the land for what became the first section of Hove Cemetery, south of Old Shoreham Road, was signed in 1878, but work could not start until late 1879 because of a dispute with the Dyke Railway Company.

[23][145] Burials include Italian composer Luigi Arditi, England cricketer Jack Hobbs, art collector Alexander Constantine Ionides, boxer Charley Mitchell and journalist and author George Augustus Sala.

[3] Now owned and operated by Brighton and Hove City Council, this 7-acre (2.8 ha) cemetery lies alongside the West Coastway railway line and is accessed from Victoria or Trafalgar Roads.

Built by Steyning-based builder W. Watson in 1872, they have flint walls with thin red-brick string courses and additional random angled brick inserts, Bath Stone dressings and boarded interiors.

[3] The 311 bodies of Quakers exhumed from the former burial ground on Rifle Butt Road at Black Rock in 1972 were reburied on land at this cemetery, which is also called the Lawn Memorial Park.

In 1930, a crematorium was added to the 1857 chapels of the Woodvale Cemetery off Lewes Road, Brighton. It was the first crematorium in Sussex . [ 1 ]
This is the main path through the Brighton and Preston Cemetery. Heavily wooded, undulating terrain in peaceful valleys formed an "ideal landscape" [ 2 ] for Brighton's elaborate Victorian-era burials.
Burials in Brighton took place around St Nicholas' Church until the 1850s.
The Nonconformist Hanover Chapel also had its own burial ground.
The Extra Mural Cemetery, "one of the most delightful spots in the whole of Brighton", [ 13 ] was consecrated in 1851.
The privately run Brighton and Preston Cemetery, opened in 1886, has its own mortuary chapel—a spire-topped building of red brick and knapped flint .
Development of Hove Cemetery began in 1879.
Portslade's cemetery was inaugurated in 1872.
The Downs Crematorium opened in 1941.
A terrace of burial vaults line the north side of the western extension to the churchyard.
The entrance to the western extension was added in 1846.
Phoebe Hessel , whose eventful life made her a Brighton celebrity, is buried in this listed tomb.
Colonel Sir George Everest is buried in the churchyard at Hove's parish church.
Part of the original vicarage's garden became an extension of the churchyard at St Margaret's Church, Rottingdean .
An ancient churchyard surrounds St Wulfran's Church, Ovingdean —a church with Saxon origins.
Several tombs at Patcham 's All Saints Church are Grade II-listed.
Gravestones in the former burial ground now line the walls of the former Hanover Chapel burial ground.
The remains of more than 300 Quakers were reinterred at the Lawn Memorial Cemetery in Woodingdean in 1972.
The original Jewish cemetery at Round Hill is now rubbish-strewn and overgrown. [ 1 ]
Meadowview Jewish Cemetery, opened in 1919, has its own chapel.
The Grade II-listed Baldwin family tomb takes the form of a Byzantine Revival mausoleum.
The Gothic Revival chapel at the cemetery is attributed to Amon Henry Wilds —an architect who did not typically work in that style.
The Ford family have a columbarium -style gabled tomb.
The approach road to the Woodvale cemetery, between high tree-lined banks, splits into three avenues which run through the valley between the graves.
The elaborate Ginnett family tomb is topped with a marble pony.
The twin cemetery chapels date from 1880.
There is a section for Commonwealth war graves .
Edmund Scott designed Portslade Cemetery's two chapels.
The privately owned cemetery has a gabled lodge house of 1885 at the entrance.
The Lawn Cemetery at Woodingdean has flat headstones.
The North Lodge at Woodvale Cemetery is home to the council's Bereavement Services division.