Undercliffe Cemetery - Layout

Layout

The cemetery is at a height of 210 m above sea level with an area of 26 acres (10 hectares) accommodating some 124,000 burials and about 23,000 marked graves. A major feature of the cemetery is the long east west promenade with the western end having excellent views over Bradford. Also at the western end is a small bandstand. At the historic core the land to the north of the promenade is terraced down to the northern entrance on Otley Road. Both entrances have a car park but only the south entrance on Undercliffe Lane has a lodge used for administration.

Most of the western half of the site is consecrated for Anglican burials while the eastern half is set aside for non-conformist burials such as Baptist, Methodist, and Quaker. The Quaker graves are characterised by their identical horizontal ground level memorial stones. The northern area of the cemetery was set aside for the un-baptised and those who had been excommunicated or committed suicide. Communal graves known as 'company plots' are to be found on the southern side of the site where up to thirty coffins at a time were interred in one grave.

Close to the car park at the southern entrance onto Undercliffe Lane is a war memorial in the form of Cross of Sacrifice to those who died in the First and Second World Wars. Behind the Cross of Sacrifice a low kerb memorial lists Commonwealth service personnel buried in the cemetery whose graves could not be marked by headstones. In all 134 Commonwealth service personnel - 91 from the First and 43 from the Second World War are buried here. Many of the former were burials from the Bradford War Hospital.