The website of the Friends of Bath Jewish Burial Ground

Please help

We have been fortunate to be the recipient of the generosity of many friends and charitable donors and are grateful that this has enabled us to undertake the work you see pictured on this page.

Restoration

For about 20 years the Friends have been working to maintain the burial ground and restore the gravestones, the cottage and the entrance area. Here is an overview of what we have been able to achieve recently.

Please click on the arrows or on the dots below the captions to advance the slideshows.


From the past

Here are some archive images of the burial ground in previous decades.


The cottage

Until 1929 the cottage was about twice as large as it now appears. It has been home to many generations of tenants who were caretakers for the ground. Both exterior and interior have needed extensive conservation.


Walls and paths

The entrance way has been repaired for better access and we have been able to make a start on the extensive work needed to repair the perimeter walls. We have also created a store area at the back of the cottage (that once used to be an outside toilet).


Headstones

Many of the headstones have suffered from erosion by weather and have delaminated, meaning that the inscriptions have become detached from the stones. Some of the larger ones were seriously decayed. To try to mitigate further damage we have to restore them using specialist methods, but repairs will inevitably be ongoing if the headstones are not to be lost entirely.


Future plans

Following some generous charitable and personal donations in 2020 and 2021 we have invested in the repairs that are shown on this page. There is still much to do.

Appeal 2022

The repairs to the stretch of wall that faces Bradford Rd have been a good start to the work of securing the perimeter, but the inside of that wall, and in particular the other interior walls, is a huge task.

While working on the outside wall, the masons had to remove a great deal of ivy roots and replace many crumbled stones, and told us that the inside stretches were likely to be in worse condition.

We anticipate several tens of thousands of pounds will be needed and will be appealing for help in starting on the worst sections during the coming months.