St Giles’ Church Burial Ground Management System – one of the first in the country

The Church of England is undertaking a National Burial Grounds Survey. This seven year project aims to survey and map accurately every one of its churchyards. It will record and photograph all the visible memorials and scan and transcribe all the parish registers. As well as then knowing the boundaries of all the churchyards, exactly where they are and where the features within them are located, valuable historic records will be preserved digitally which might otherwise be lost as paper records deteriorate.

St Giles’ Church in Ashtead is one of the first churches to have been mapped as part of this programme. Over much of the Covid lockdown period a wonderful group of 25+ St Giles’ and St George’s volunteers recorded and uploaded data into our St Giles’ Burial Ground Management System (BGMS). This involved transcribing 7,500 burial records from 11 burial registers dating back to 1662, uploading photos of all the memorials in the graveyard and linking all of these to the correct plot. This work is now complete and our BGMS, which is updated continually with the latest burials, is now available on our church website sgsgashtead.org.uk/burialrecords and also directly via ashtead.burialgrounds.co.uk.

In recognition of their efforts, The Rotary Club of Ashtead recently presented the St Giles’ BGMS team with their annual Service Recognition Award. A huge credit to all those involved.

On St Giles’ Church Heritage Sunday, 11 September from 2:00pm to 5:00pm, there will be members of our BGMS team on hand to show you the system, answer your questions and walk you round some of our graveyard highlights. Please do take advantage of this excellent opportunity!   If you have any questions or comments please email bgms@ashteadparish.org.