Background to the War Graves Project

Aims

The project aimed to achieve the following:

  1. Identify and map the location of all the graves.
  2. Photograph the graves as a record and a reference point of the current state of them all.
  3. Negotiate with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission to take on the regular maintenance of the graves.
  4. Document as far as we can the story of each person buried there.  We would like to track down any living relatives and write up brief stories of the actions/ campaigns in which the people died. (Note: this was superseded by the Teign Heritage Centre undertaking two major projects on documenting Teignmouth and Shaldon in both world wars)
  5. Clear all 49 graves, making them visible and accessible in accordance with CWGC guidelines.
  6. Produce display board(s) for the Cemetery showing the locations of graves and details of people buried there. This is to enable any visitor to the cemetery to be able to find readily a grave they may be looking for.
  7. Organise some sort of commemorative ceremony to complement the main remembrance service in November.  This was held the weekend before, on Saturday November 3rd

Outcomes

Through the above we hoped to achieve the following:

  1. The War Graves should be more accessible for relatives and maintained with the respect due to them.
  2. We wanted like to encourage local community involvement with businesses, schools and any living relatives
  3. We were keen to increase awareness of the Friends of Teignmouth Cemetery and the work that we are doing as a group of volunteers.

Our expectations were fully met

Update July 2020

Following all the work we have done the Commonwealth War Graves Commission has now installed official signs at all three entrances to the cemetery:

More Information

Click on the following links for further information:

Ceremony 2018
Commonwealth War Graves
Bombing Casualties