Records relating to the responsibilities of Bath City Council for parks, allotments...

The records in this sub-fonds relate to the Council's responsibilities for parks (including playing fields), allotments and cemeteries. Parks and cemeteries were for many years dealt with by the same committee; allotments were dealt with by a separate committee until 1955, when responsibility passed to the Parks Committee.

Cemeteries
By the early nineteenth century, many church graveyards were full, and it became necessary to provide new burial grounds. In an attempt to solve this problem, the Burial Act of 1853 enabled parish vestries to establish burial boards, if they so wished, to provide and manage new burial grounds. These burial boards, consisting of between three and nine parish ratepayers, could purchase land for a cemetery and provide chapels; money was to be raised through a precept on the poor rates. In Bath, seven burial boards were set up by parish vestries: the first five, Bathwick, Lyncombe and Widcombe and St James, St Michael's, St Saviour's, and Walcot in 1859; a sixth, Weston, was set up by 1877, and a seventh, Twerton, in 1880.

Later Acts permitted various types of local authorities to set up burial boards, or to take over existing boards. In Bath, the City Council took over all the burial boards in 1911. The records of the burial boards passed to the Council along with their other assets; and while the minutes and other administrative records of the boards themselves cease in 1911, very often the books used in the cemeteries to record burials and fees paid continued in use unchanged after the transfer to City control. For these reasons, the records of the burial boards have been catalogued as part of the City records.

Parks
The 1875 Public Health Act enabled local authorities to purchase or take on lease land for 'pleasure grounds', and to provide funds for their upkeep. In 1879, Bath City Council took over the Royal Victoria Park under the Bath Act of that year. This park had been established by subscription in 1829; it formed part of the Freemen's Estate which the Council acquired by means of the 1879 Act. The Act provided that the park should be held in perpetuity as a park or place of public resort and recreation. In 1912, the Council also took over Sydney Gardens, which had been established as a 'pleasure garden' in 1795. In the twentieth century, the Council created or took over a number of other parks and recreational spaces.

Allotments
The Smallholdings and Allotments Act of 1908 placed on urban local authorities the duty to create allotments. The Council set up the Smallholdings and Allotments Committee that year, and purchased the first land for allotments at Rosehill above Larkhall in December. A number of further sites were rented or purchased from 1913 onwards, and by 1946 the Council were letting out over 2000 plots covering 140 acres. A number of allotment sites were closed over the next twenty years, and Bath & North East Somerset Council in 2015 had 23 allotment sites in Bath with just over 1100 plots.

Description compiled with reference to
William E Eyles, 'The Freemen of Bath and the Freemen's Estate', typescript unpublished essay, 1970
Malcolm Hitchcock, 'Bath's Municipal Allotments', in the 'Survey of Bath and District', no.21, October 2006
Brenda Snaddon, 'The Last Promenade. Sydney Gardens, Bath', Bath, 2000
Bath & North East Somerset Council website http://www.bathnes.gov.uk/services/sport-leisure-and-parks/allotments, accessed 04/06/2015

The records include:
-Records of the Burial boards, including minutes and financial records
-Cemetery fee books, plans, records of headstone designs, applications for interment
-General filing relating to the work of the Parks Committee
-Papers relating to the purchase of Sydney Gardens
-General filing relating to the work of the Smallholdings and Allotment Committee
-Allotment rentals
-Plans of parks and cemeteries
-Slides and photographs of parks

The records have not yet been catalogued in detail. Please contact the Record Office for more information.

Note that with a few exceptions, cemetery registers are not held by the Record Office. They are held by Bath & North East Somerset Bereavement Services at Haycombe Cemetery, Bath.