History: Basingstoke's old cemetery and chapel ruins

This site was the town’s burial ground from the 13th century, opened during a period of excommunication caused by a dispute between King John and the Pope.

After things had calmed down, this ‘new’ graveyard or Liten was consecrated and used from then on, until finally full around 1912, when the Worting Road cemetery opened.

The railway expansion from the 1830s obliged the graveyard to hand over a bit of land at its southern end. The LSWR had to pay for exhumation and re-burial. 

At some date after the graveyard was consecrated in the 13th century, a Guild or Fraternity of local men was set up to manage the site; a chapel was built of which only the west end survives, and this all had to be paid for.  

Local people gave land and money for the upkeep of the chapel, which also took on the role of teaching men and boys.

13th-century chapel remains with effigy of Alderman of the Guild (Image: Contributed)

Evidence of land being given to fund the Guild exists from 1463 when a wealthy chap called Michael Skylling left lands in Basingstoke for the endowment of an obit which meant that after his death, masses would be said for his soul and candles would burn in front of a favourite statue.  

His gift of land included a horse-mill south of the river in Oat Street, Basingstoke.

The teaching role of the Guild was confirmed in the time of Henry VIII with the note that this provision had been in place ‘time out of mind.’

Other land belonged to the Guild – a barn on the ‘Down’ had a Holy Barn – the name commemorated today in a road name. Chapel Field also provided income.

With the long passage of time, we know that William Lord Sandys’ high-status chapel was added on in the 1520s, fell foul of the English Reformation and ended up the ruin we see today.

Soon after this the town’s grammar school was established in the ruins, confirmed by a charter of Philip and Mary in 1556 and henceforth known as The Queen’s or Queen Mary’s School.

At this time, the restored estates include “land called Frymles or the Holye Gost farm, with a horse mill and a piece of land in Oat Street … … three acres of arable land called Northfield, a tenement in Holye Gost Street, otherwise called Whitewaye and the Holye Gost barn with 100 acres of arable land in the common fields of the town”.  The ‘Whitewaye’ was Chapel Street, cut into the chalk.

Holy Trinity chapel ruin and Queen Mary's Grammar School building. (Image: Contributed)

The school outgrew its site among the ruins and by the mid-19th century, when Victorian folk wanted to leave memorials as richer people had always done, there was an increase in marked graves, and vaults for families, which led to better management of graveyards as places to visit, with grassed walks and fine entrances and improvements to the site, such as the addition of the Lodge and the two mortuary chapels which all date from around 1860.

The quirky, Gothick-style Lodge survives but the two chapels were demolished long ago.

The Cemetery Lodge in Chapel Hill (Image: Contributed)

One of the 19th-century mortuary chapels in the cemetery. (Image: Contributed)

The school, which had moved to Worting Road in 1855 (now the north side of BCOT) had to be paid for.

This required the sale of much of the land owned by the Guild, which related to the upkeep of the school as well as other charitable bequests for gifts such as gowns or bread. The fund was still supported by income from the site of that medieval horse-mill, left by Michael Skylling.

By 1940, the boys’ grammar school moved again, this time to Vyne Road (now the Vyne School).

Thirty years later, Hampshire County Council opted for the comprehensive system of education.

The town’s four old secondary schools – Queen Mary’s Grammar School for Boys, Charles Chute School (formerly Fairfields), The Shrubbery Girls School and Basingstoke High School for Girls all became co-ed and comprehensive, joining other new schools built for the enlarged population.

Queen Mary's School in Worting Road. (Image: Terry Hunt)

The Shrubbery school site became the new VIth Form College, taking with it the name of the Tudor Queen Mary, who had responded in 1556 to the townspeople’s request to restore the teaching function of their Guild.

So where did the funds go from this very ancient endowment?

At the time of this educational upheaval, Cllr Dudley Keep was both a senior County Councillor and an ‘old boy’ of the school as well as serving as Mayor. He moved to protect the ancient foundation with a revised charity for education, still drawing some of its income from the site of a medieval horse-mill in Wote Street.

Next time you walk down Wote Street close to the infamous sculpture, think about the old horse-mill grinding malt for beer and dwell on the fact that you live in a town with a long and fascinating history.