Highland Road Cemetery

The 1853 Burials Act meant that all councils should manage their own cemeteries.

Highland Road Cemetery was opened in November 1854 at a time when frequent out breaks of cholera killed a good many residents of Portsea Island. During 1848-9 some 800 people succumbed. In fact so many people died that there weren't enough skilled workers to keep the dockyard functioning and it was forced to close.

When the cemetery was built it stood in open country, over a mile away from the rapidly expanding town of Southsea. The land had been originally been used for brickmaking. Portsmouth rapidly expanded and urban buildings soon engulfed the cemetery.