Monument MPM398 - Former Colewort Burial Ground, Old Portsmouth

Site of a former churchyard/burial ground, associated with the 17th century Colewort Barracks and the former 19th century St Mary's Chapel of Ease (St Mary Colewort).

A burial ground/churchyard is marked on the west side of Colewort Barracks on 18th, 19th and 20th century maps [1-4]. A copy of a plan of Portsmouth dated 1762 reproduced in East's 'Extracts from the Portsmouth Records', marks this area as the 'Colewort Garden Burial Ground' [4]. The 1870, 1898 and 1910 Ordnance Survey maps mark the same area as a churchyard, with the 19th century St Mary's Chapel of Ease immediately to the south.

Rawlinson's report to the General Board of Health of 1850 refers to the churchyard as that of St Mary Colewort, and states that the land was first used as a burial ground during Charles II's reign when a military hospital and the Colewort Barracks were built (Colewort Garden Burial Ground). The church of St Mary was added during the 19th century. Rawlinson stated that by 1850 two-thirds of the burials in the parish of Portsmouth took place there, a large proportion of which were military. [5]

Burials would have ceased when Highland Road Cemetery opened in 1854. A list of burial grounds in a staff information folder at Portsmouth History Centre states that burials from the churchyard/burial ground were re-interred at Milton Cemetery in 1955.

<1> Ordnance Survey, 1870, Ordnance Survey Map 1870 (Map). SPM282.

<2> Ordnance Survey, 1898, Ordnance Survey Map 1898 (Map). SPM265.

<3> Ordnance Survey, 1910, Ordnance Survey Map 1910 (Map). SPM266.

<4> East, Robert, 1891, Extracts from the Portsmouth Records (Bibliographic reference). SPM279.

<5> Rawlinson, Robert, 1850, Report to the General Board of Health on a Preliminary Inquiry into the Sewerage, Drainage, and Supply of Water, and the Santitary Condition of the Inhabitants of the Borough of Portsmouth in the County of Hampshire. (Bibliographic reference). SPM345.