Osney Cemetery (also known as Osney St Mary Cemetery) is a disusedChurch of Englandcemetery inOsney, westOxford, England. Its entrance is in Osney Lane, which runs off the south end ofMill Street, south ofBotley Road and near the site ofOsney Abbey. It borders theCherwell Valley Line railway a short distance south ofOxford railway station.
The cemetery was established in Oxford in 1848, along withHolywell Cemetery andSt Sepulchre's Cemetery,[1] because central Oxford churchyards were becoming full. In 1855, new burials were forbidden at all Oxford city churches, apart from in existing vaults.
Each of these three new parish cemeteries provided an extension to the churchyards for a specific group of nearby churches, with each church having its own area. Osney Cemetery covered the four ancient parishes ofSt Aldate's,St Ebbe’s,St Peter-le-Bailey, andSt Thomas, and the new parish of Holy Trinity, which had been taken out of St Ebbe’s parish in 1845. The burials in Osney Cemetery are recorded in the parish register for each of these churches just as if they had taken place in its actual churchyard. From 1872 the dead of the new church ofSt Frideswide, whose parish had been taken out of that of St Thomas, were also buried in Osney Cemetery.
Christ Church was still an extra-parochial non-royal peculiar (exempt from the jurisdiction of the diocese) when Osney Cemetery opened, but by 1901 it had been given space in the St Thomas's section of Osney Cemetery called "Christ Church portion”.
The entrance to Osney Cemetery has alych gate.[2]
The cemetery contains 26Commonwealth war graves from theFirst World War and also one British soldier killed in theSecond World War.[3]
The cemetery is now closed to new burials.[4] It is still a large green space in central Oxford. In 2006 it was proposed to plant more native trees in the area.[5]
51°44′59″N1°16′12″W / 51.749747°N 1.269941°W /51.749747; -1.269941
