Witton Cemetery

Witton Cemetery, which opened in Witton in 1863 as Birmingham City Cemetery, is the largest cemetery in Birmingham, England. Covering an area of 103acre, it once had three chapels; however, two of these were demolished in 1980. The cemetery would perform up to 20 burials a day; however, it was declared "full to capacity" in December 2013, allowing for burials only in existing family plots, or of babies or cremated remains. Extra capacity was therefore provided at the nearby New Hall Cemetery. The cemetery office was opened in 1999.HistoryStarted in May 1860 and consecrated by the Bishop of Worcester on 23 May 1863, it was the only cemetery owned by the Corporation of Birmingham until 1911, when an expansion of the city boundary brought in others. Key Hill and Warstone Lane Cemetery were private concerns. It opened in 1863 with an area of 106acre. In 1869, 2acre were bought by the Jewish community for their own interments, forming Birmingham Hebrew Congregation Cemetery, at the north of the site, across College Road.The surrounding brick walls are long, the longest in the Midlands..War gravesThe cemetery contains 459 Commonwealth service war graves from World War I, over 200 of whom form three denominational war graves plots marked by Screen Walls bearing names of those buried within the plots and elsewhere in the cemetery whose graves could not be marked by headstones.