The only Churchyard in Shaldon, in fact the only Burial Place of any kind, is the one surrounding St. Nicholas (the original Parish Church), where Burials are still taking place.
If you wish to locate an old grave, our Churchyard Records may help, but only if there is a legible headstone or other memorial. In that case we can provide you with directions to find it. Eventually we hope to put our records on this site with Plans of the Churchyard.
If there is no legible memorial, it is very unlikely that we can pinpoint the grave. From our Church Registers, we can normally confirm whether a particular person was buried in the Churchyard, and the date this took place: but we won't know the location.
For recent Burials our Churchyard records are much more complete.
The old part of the Churchyard consists of a long strip of land parallel to the river, with the church at one end. Most of the memorials here are 19th or early 20th century (a few older). Two adjacent areas were added: the first was opened in 1950 and the second in 1993. Apart from a few re-openings, burials no longer take place either in the old part or the first extension.
Cremation plots (for Ashes) will be found in the old part of the churchyard (near the east end of the Church) and in the second extension.
Please contact one of the Churchwardens for details.
It appears that there is a misconception that the Churchyard at St. Nicholas’ Church is just for use by the Anglican Church. However, this is not correct; the churchyard is for the village community as a whole. Every denomination of faith, plus those of none, is entitled to be buried in the churchyard. In fact, if a visitor to the village dies whilst here, they too are entitled to be buried in St Nicholas Churchyard!
Currently the cost of the upkeep of the churchyard is not being met by its income and we are looking at ways of addressing this problem. We do have some ideas that we may be able to take forward but would really like to encourage local support and help. We are working closely with the Parish Council who may consider a small increase in the Precept next year which would be a big help but we will still fall short of our needs. We are open to ideas for increasing the income in order to maintain the upkeep of our churchyard and would therefore welcome your thoughts.