Locksbrook Cemetery in Lower Weston, Bath, was opened in 1864. A different time with different attitudes, particularly to death. The age of the no-fuss, no funeral, low-cost cremation was still a century and a half away. The country was politically and economically at its zenith, although not all of its inhabitants had much of a share in the power or the wealth. Still, Locksbrook served a prosperous area. And even poor people afforded a decent funeral somehow, for the most part.
The chapels, lodges, entrances, and other buildings, are from the designs of Messrs. Hickes and Isaac, of Bath, and are in the early decorated manner. The chapels are united by cloisters, from the centre of which rises a tower one hundred feet in height.
What really strikes you about Locksbrook is the way it is landscaped, with its undulations, distinctive ‘rooms’, wide variety of memorials and monuments, and, most of all, its many specimen trees. Edward Milner (1819-1884) was the landscape architect we have to thank for that. Today it is a conservation area open to the public and a place for mild exercise and contemplation. Worth a visit.