A list of those buried at Arnos Vale is a who's who of Victorian Bristol.  The Cemetery accommodated both Anglicans and Nonconformists from the wealthiest and most dominant families to paupers who died in the city's immense parish workhouses.

Here you will find the graves of powerful industrial families such as the Wills tobacco dynasty or the Robinsons, founders of the packaging firm, or Charles Wathen, a founder of the Gardiner Wathen clothing company still trading today, alongside those of social reformers and campaigners.

In excess of 100,000 burials took place at Arnos Vale in its first 70 years and the total number now exceeds 170,000.  In addition, more than 123,000 cremations were held from the cemetery's opening at the South West of England's first crematorium in 1928 and the facility's closure in 1998.

Over the course of its history, Arnos Vale Cemetery offered a range of different services.  During the 19^th century, particularly, it held a mirror to stiffness of the Victorian social order, where everyone - rich or poor, servant or master - was expected to "know their place" and stick to it, even in death.

During the campaign to save the cemetery, Northcliffe Newspapers - owners of the Bristol Evening Post - stepped in and generously purchased, then donated, the Arnos Vale Crematorium Books of Remembrance - each containing personal messages and memories by people who knew the deceased.

Do you have photos or memorabilia relating to a family member buried at Arnos Vale? You are invited to post mementos with a caption and memory here.

In the next phase of the cemetery’s development, we are hoping to offer courses in family history research. Join the mailing list to be sure of receiving news from Arnos Vale. Meanwhile, local and family historians may find the following websites useful: