Layton cemetery

Layton cemetery
Layton cemetery
	The entrance to Layton Cemetery, with the mortuary chapel
Details
Established	1873
Location	Blackpool, Lancashire
Country	England
Coordinates	53°49′46″N 3°02′03″W / 53.8295°N 3.0343°W
Type	Public
Owned by	Blackpool Council
Size	30 acres (12 ha)
Find a Grave	Layton cemetery

Layton cemetery is a graveyard located at Talbot Road in Blackpool, Lancashire in England. It was opened in 1873 when Blackpool parish church was replete with burying. The site encompasses 30 acres (120,000 m²), having been regularly expanded during its history. It is administered by Blackpool Council. A number of memorials in the cemetery are executed in Portland stone.

The cemetery was designed and laid out by Garlick, Park and Sykes, architects of Preston. Originally there were three mortuary chapels, Anglican, Catholic and Non-Conformist, but only the Anglican remains. The lodge at the entrance is now used as the cemetery office, situated to the right of the main gates on Talbot Road, it is currently occupied by the friends group, although originally it is where John Wray, the Superintendent & registrar, resided with his wife and their brood of children. Records show that by 1891 eleven people dwelled within the bijou cottage! He recorded burials, exhumations and unusual incidents in copper-plate handwriting from within his office which was also situated inside the lodge. The original part of the cemetery was surrounded a stone wall, topped with iron railings with a double iron gate at the entrance. These structures are extant. A World War I memorial is centrally situated.

In the 1930s, the cemetery was rapidly nearing capacity and therefore a new cemetery and crematorium were opened, known as Carleton Crematorium and Cemetery. Layton Cemetery is now replete but interments are permitted in existing graves.^[1]

Notable interments

Dick Barlow, England test cricketer
Gerald Irving Richardson, Superintendent of Lancashire Constabulary. Posthumously awarded the George Cross.
George Washington Williams, Afro-American historian
Samuel Laycock, dialect poet
Edwin Hughes, last survivor of the Charge of the Light Brigade
Alfred Tysoe, British athlete, winner of two gold medals at the 1900 Olympic Games
Spencer Timothy Hall, writer and mesmerist
Ada Boswell, Queen of the Gypsies
Joe Longthorne, entertainer

War Graves

Layton Cemetery contains the graves of 139 Commonwealth service personnel of World War I and 39 of World War II, besides, from the latter war, 26 airmen of the Polish Air Force (whose headquarters in exile were in Talbot Square in the town), and one airman of the Royal Yugoslav Air Force.^[2]