Funder: Historic England
Project duration: October 2019 to November 2022
Celebrating Birmingham’s Burial Grounds Project Report
This project focuses on the social history to be discovered and shared by exploring 5 burial grounds in Birmingham which are:
- Key Hill Cemetery
- Warstone Lane Cemetery
- St Mary’s Churchyard, Handsworth.
- Brandwood End Cemetery
- St Barnabas Churchyard, Erdington.
Using a bespoke digital system we have mapped the 5 sites, ran 44 memorial recording sessions which (alongside some wonderful independent recorders) recorded the inscriptions of over 4,338 memorials and the details of 7,610 people have been added to the 5 digital maps in 12 group sessions and many, many hours of people continuing this work at home. Our wonderful volunteers are still working away and the numbers are still rising.
We also ran:
- 2 (very early) dawn chorus walks
- a BioBlitz
- a family session
- a Churches Count on Nature session
- organised 6 talks
- part funded 3 afterschool club sessions, and
- ran 2 fungi walks.
You can watch a short film of volunteers in Warstone Lane Cemetery here.
There are plans for the memorial recording to continue – if you would like to add your name to the mailing list for information please contact enquiries@cfga.org.uk .
Project Newsletters
Final Newsletter November 2022
Archive Guide
The pandemic meant that we were not able to run the sessions we had hoped to run in the Birmingham Archive. Instead we have produced a guide (written by heritage expert Josie Wall) that takes you right through the process from joining the library to navigating online catalogues and booking items to view. The guide is free to download and can be found here Guide to Birmingham Archives.
Access to information on the maps
Information on the map can be accessed via the organisations we have been working with and you will be able to view and explore it yourselves at the Birmingham Archives soon.
- Friends of Brandwood End Cemetery
- The Friends of Key Hill & Warstone Lane Cemeteries
- Handsworth Historical Society
- St Barnabas Church
Thank you to the above organisations and to Erdington Historical Society for their collaboration and support in this project.
Filmed Talks
The Celebrating Birmingham’s Burial Grounds Project ran an afternoon of talks on subjects around this burial ground mapping and recording project on Saturday 20th November 2021 at the Birmingham and Midlands Institute in central Birmingham. Speakers Included:
- Harold Mytum, Professor of Archaeology at University of Liverpool. Harold is a leading expert on the study of graveyard memorials and author of several books and numerous papers.
- Josie Wall is the Activities Programme Manager for the Jewellery Quarter Cemeteries Project and a PhD student at the University of Birmingham.
- Colin Fenn, Vice Chairman of the National Federation of Cemetery Friends.
A recording of the talks can be accessed on request, please contact anna@cfga.org.uk. 
