The General Cemetery at Key Hill was originated at a meeting held Oct. 18, 1832, when a proprietary Company was formed, and a capital fixed at L12,000, in shares of L10 each.  The total area of the property is about twelve acres, eight of which are laid out for general burials, in a edition to the catacombs cut into the sandstone rock.

The Church of England Cemetery in Warstone Lane is also the property of a private Company, having a capital of L20,000 in L10 shares.  The area is nearly fifteen acres, the whole of which was consecrated as a burial ground for the Church on August 20, 1848.

The Catholic Cemetery of St. Joseph, at Nechell’s Green, received its first consignment in 1850.

The introduction and extension of railways have played sad havoc with a number of the old burial grounds belonging to our forefathers.  As mentioned above the London and North Western took a slice out of Park Street Cemetery.  The Great Western cleared the Quakers’ burial ground in Monmouth Street (where the Arcade now stands) the remains of the departed Friends being removed to their chapel yard in Bull Street, and a curious tale has been told in connection therewith.  It is said that the representative of the Society of Friends was a proper man of business, as, indeed, most of them are, and that he drove rather a hard bargain with the railway directors, who at last were obliged to give in to what they considered to be an exorbitant demand for such a small bit of freehold.  The agreement was made and the contract signed, and Friend Broadbrim went on his way rejoicing; but not for long.  In selling the land he apparently forgot that the land contained bones, for when the question of removing the dead was mooted, the Quaker found he had to pay back a goodly portion of the purchase money before he obtained permission to do so.  In clearing the old streets away to make room for New Street Station, in 1846, the London and North Western found a small Jewish Cemetery in what was then known as the “Froggery,” but which had long been disused.  The descendants of Israel carefully gathered the bones and reinterred them in their later-dated cemetery in Granville Street, but even here they did not find their last resting-place, for when, a few years back, the Midland made the West Suburban line, it became necessary to clear out this ground also, and the much-disturbed remains of the poor Hebrews were removed to Witton.  The third and last of the Jewish Cemeteries, that in Betholom Row, which was first used in or about 1825, and has long been full, is also doomed to make way for the extension of the same line.—­During the year 1883 the time-honoured old Meeting-house yard, where Poet Freeth, and many another local worthy, were laid to rest, has been carted off—­dust and ashes, tombs and tombstones—­to the great graveyard at Witton, where Christian and Infidel, Jew and Gentile, it is to be hoped, will be left at peace till the end of the world.