Our graveyards contain many surprises and links to our often forgotten past. However, many of our gravestones are deteriorating rapidly and many have been lost in recent years, so we are busy cataloguing gravestones in Collingham before it is too late. If you would like to join our team please contact Charlie Stothard (Deputy Archivist) via our Contact Us page.

This database contains the following information:

• Personal information : Surname, Forename, Year of death, Age at death.
• Churchyard : All Saints = North Collingham; St John B = South Collingham.
• Grave location : Graveyard section, Plot reference.

The personal information has in each case been transcribed from the memorial inscription. Missing information may possibly be found in the burial registers. Transcription of these may be viewed on the website www.easttrentgenealogy.co.uk.

In some cases the spelling of names may differ between the memorial, the burial register and census records. The database contains the name as transcribed from the memorial.

More information such as exact date of death and names of relatives may be in the memorial inscription. Transcriptions of these may be requested via this website – please select ‘Archive Manager’ as the Recipient for your enquiry.

The data can be sorted by clicking on the header at the top of each column. Click once to sort in ascending order; click twice to sort in descending order.

To search or filter the data, enter text into the Search box.

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More about these records

Collingham was originally two distinct parishes, North Collingham and South Collingham. Each had a parish church, All Saints in North and St. John the Baptist in South. Each had its own graveyard in the church grounds. North Collingham also had a small graveyard at its Baptist chapel.

Members of the Society have undertaken to record the style and condition of the memorials in these locations, as well as the inscriptions.

This is an ongoing task and new information will be added to records that are currently available. Efforts were initially targeted on All Saints churchyard which has two distinct areas. In 1916, additional land for burials was purchased adjacent to the existing church grounds. This new area is referred to as the ‘1916 graveyard’. The pre-1916 burial area is located around three sides of the church building and for purposes of recording has been divided into areas, namely: Church North, Church South, South Porch, Lychgate East and Lychgate West. As the memorials here are almost exclusively pre-1916 and indeed go back to our earliest record of 1765, they are in various stages of decay. The gravestones in the 1916 graveyard are in much better condition so their recording is not currently a priority. Those in the 1916 North section have been added to the database and the others will follow in the future.

There are a few post-1916 burials in the earlier section where the deceased has been buried with a close relative or in a family plot. There are also a few names recorded on memorials where the burial is actually elsewhere. One example is two Collingham men recorded on a headstone placed on a relatives plot as having died in the ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’. There may be others, as in some cases no burial can be found in Parish records. Parish records for Collingham churches can be found on the excellent website East Trent Genealogy. This resource has been extensively used to cross reference inscriptions and is hereby acknowledged.

There are currently around 20 memorial inscriptions in the pre-1916 burial area that have not been recorded. This is because the inscriptions are so deteriorated that they are illegible without specialist reading techniques. A method using digital software is being evaluated to see if this can be used beneficially.

Throughout 2020 the efforts of the recording team have been focused on the older memorials in St John the Baptist churchyard. Four sections have been surveyed and these records will be added to the database as they are processed. The ‘South Gate’ and ‘Church South’ sections were added in December 2020, the ‘West’ section in February 2021, and others will follow later in the year.

The records that will be stored in CDLHS archives contain for each memorial, three pages. A cover sheet with photograph and main information i.e. names, dates, ages and relationships. A second page with the recorded inscription and description of style and condition of the memorial. A third page with additional researched information on the people named.

Information to assist Family History research is in our Collingham Memorials Database. This lists surname, forenames, year of death, age, graveyard section and a unique plot reference. For more general interest, some of the gravestones have featured in articles in the Society publication The Irregular.

Enquiries from anyone doing such research are welcome and where possible, a picture of the headstone and full inscription will be provided. Any information about people on our database which can be added to CDLHS archives is also sought.

Contact can be made via this website – when you choose the recipient for your enquiry, please select ‘Archive Manager’ from the drop-down list. In the case of a planned visit we can provide a plan of the graveyard showing the memorial location.