15 July 2025
The rain held off as 10 members of our group were treated to a very interesting tour and talk about the cemetery, its history and the many famous people whose graves and memorials are to be found there.
Welford Road, Leicester’s first municipal cemetery, opened in 1849, is the 3rd oldest in the country and is still in use. It is spread across 31 acres of land, on the edge of what was the old town of Leicester, and it is Grade 2 listed in the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens.
The Cemetery is a beautiful, calm, peaceful place with easy walkways and something of interest at every turn. Many of Leicester’s oldest and unusual trees can be found there. Our group visited the very informative Visitor Centre where we found maps, leaflets, grave layout plans and lots of helpful literature. In addition, knowledgeable and committed members of the Friends of Welford Road Cemetery were present to help visitors to locate family graves.
Many of Leicester’s wealthy, famous and notorious Victorian and Edwardian men and women were buried there and we were shown the graves of Thomas Cook, Fielding Johnson and John Ellis, among others.
There are over 213,000 people buried in the cemetery with 30,000 graves and 10,000 headstones. There are many military graves. On the site of the original chapels (now demolished) there are plaques that remind us of many ordinary people from Leicestershire. These plaques are numbered and have biographical information on them plus the grave location. The amount of information and sign-posting in such a large area is exceptional.
For any group looking for an interesting and unusual activity, a visit to Welford Road Cemetery is certainly educational and very worthwhile.