As a quickly developing and popular Victorian eraspa town, the town of Tunbridge Wells did not gain its first church until 1829, when the Decimus Burton designed Holy Trinity Church opened. The town gained its first cemetery, Woodbury Park Cemetery in 1849, laid out over 3 acres (1.2 ha) and consecrated as Trinity Cemetery.[2]
However, as the town's expansion quickened, and with no additional land into which to expand the grounds, Woodbury Park proved too small. Although burials were continued to be allowed in family plots post 1873, the last burial took place there in 1934. It is now Grade II listed.[2]
After Tunbridge Wells town corporation had procured lands on the northern edge of Frantforest/southern edge of the town, the initially named Frant Forest Cemetery opened in 1873.[3] It was laid out over an initial 23 acres (9.3 ha) site by the town surveyor William Brentnall, who had originally been recruited to rebuild the drainage system around the town. Bretnall was later buried in the same grounds.[1] The co-located crematorium was opened in 1959.[4]
Enlarged twice and now covering over 28 acres (11 ha), today the grounds house over 44,000 burials.[1] In June 2014, a new Friends of Tunbridge Wells Cemetery association were formed.[5]
