A special memorial for stillborn babies will be placed in Bury St Edmunds cemetery in September and families are being invited to attend a simple commemoration service.
The free standing granite memorial will feature a sleeping baby cradled in a hand on a pedestal, placed in an area of the cemetery where there are known to be a large number of babies' graves. Around the pedestal will be space for families to have dedicated plaques.
There will be a short commemoration service in the Bury cemetery chapel on 29 September at 12 noon. It will be led by the Rev John Parr, chaplain to the Mayor of St Edmundsbury Borough, Cllr Ian Houlder, who will formally unveil the memorial. All families who have babies or children in the cemetery are welcome to attend and are asked first to contact the cemeteries office on 01284 757068 to register their interest.
Burials of stillborn babies started to be recorded separately in Bury St Edmunds from 1948. Between that date and now there have been over 580 such burials. Often the tiny bodies are buried at the foot of an adult grave and this figure does not include babies which were lost before 24 weeks of pregnancy, or children that died during infancy.
The tiny graves were often unmarked, and sometimes generations have passed with knowledge of their location lost to family history. The new memorial will provide a focus for those who died in the past, as well as present and future grieving families.
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Issued by: Marianne Hulland, Communications Unit, St Edmundsbury Borough Council. Phone: 01284 757034 Mobile: 07958 470501 Email: marianne.hulland@stedsbc.gov.uk
