The North Road Burial Ground and Prittlewell Chapel History.
 

The North Road Burial Ground was not always a place to bury dead people. Before Southend Borough Council bought the land on the 15th of November 1879 for £900 it was a cricket pitch. The people who ran the council then decided that they would have some chapels built on the land in the same year and the buildings were completed in 1880.
 

The original Prittlewell Chapel, with the front being built from stone from Bath, consisted of two wings. The left (north) chapel was for funerals of “non-believers”, while the right (south) chapel was for Christians. Between the two chapels was an opening through which a horse and wagon could drive with a coffin, and then continue straight ahead for the burial in the grounds.

North Road cemetery was originally created to provide extra burial capacity for St Mary's Church in Victoria Avenue. At the time, it was regarded as an excellent piece of architecture in the town and was put on a special list to stop anyone changing it in the future.  

The first burial was in March 1881 and was of a little orphan girl, Annie Smith. Between 1881 and 1900, around 2,000 people were interred at the North Road and it was the main burial site for Southend. Sutton Road Cemetery opened in 1900 and the two burial grounds were used by people in Southend until 1967, when North Road had run out of space and Sutton Road became Southend Borough’s main place for burying bodies. The last grave plot at North Road was purchased in 1967, when the burial ground was closed to new burials, though it was and still is possible for people to be buried in existing family graves.
 

Until 2003, a cemetery lodge (a kind of house) also stood on the right-hand side, where the new car park can be found. This was originally for the people who worked in the cemetery and was lived in up  until vandalism forced it to be knocked down to make it safe.