Mendip Hospital Cemetery
It is estimated that some 8,500 burials took place in the 85 years that Mendip Hospital Cemetery was in use. The Mendip Hospital, or the Somerset and Bath Lunatic Asylum as it was formerly known, was located a short distance away in South Horrington. Opened in 1848 it housed those known at the time as ‘pauper lunatics’ who previously had been in local workhouses. Some of the men worked on the asylum’s farm which provided food for the institution, and other men and women carried out other tasks to support its maintenance. By the 1900s its use had changed to providing care for long-stay elderly and mentally infirm patients. It closed in 1991. Following the hospital closure the buildings were converted into houses and flats.
Most of the graves in the cemetery were marked by a simple iron marker such as those in the foreground of the image. Each iron marker was numbered and a matched record gave the name of the person buried in that location. However, at some point these iron markers were removed so that it is no longer possible to identify specific burial locations. In recent years a group of volunteers have been tracing the relatives of some of those buried in the cemetery,
The cemetery is now cared for by a group of volunteers and there are regular Open Days throughout the summer months.