St Nicholas Gardens are the burial grounds which surround the ancient mother church of St Nicholas. A site of pre christian importance, a church has been present since at least the 11th century. The gardens formed the main burial grounds for Brighton residents until the 1850′s. The details and stories of those interred at the site have been lost over the ages, a process assisted by two major clearances of mounuments in the 1850′s and late 1940′s. In recent years work has been undertaken to rediscover the detail of those remembered and the tales which accompany them.
The Brighton Mortiquarian will log and publish this detail. A recent development of this ambition has been to consider the deceased resting at the nearby Hanover Chapel Burial Ground, and materials concerning this place will also be included on these pages.
Mortiquaria derived from the Latin antiquarius meaning ‘pertaining to ancient times’ and mortuus meaning ‘dead’ or ‘having died’. Mortiquaria is more specifically the term for the study of the history of place with particular attention to the mortal remains, resting places, symbols and engravings of the deceased. The essence of mortiquarianism is to build on the bones of empirical study, the flesh of social history, folklore and myth. First usage of the term is recorded in relation to St Nicholas Ancient Ground, Brighton UK.
