Circular Road Cemetery is a

cemetery A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite, graveyard, or a green space called a memorial park or memorial garden, is a place where the remains of many death, dead people are burial, buried or otherwise entombed. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek ...

located in

Freetown Freetown () is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Sierra Leone. It is a major port city on the Atlantic Ocean and is located in the Western Area of the country. Freetown is Sierra Leone's major urban, economic, financial, cultural, e ...

Sierra Leone Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered to the southeast by Liberia and by Guinea to the north. Sierra Leone's land area is . It has a tropical climate and envi ...

. It was opened in 1827. Urban expansion had meant that the old burial ground at the south end of Howe Street had become surrounded by houses and so could not be enlarged. While the old cemetery was still used for the descendants of Nova Scotia and Maroon settlers, this was subsequently turned into a playground.

History of neglect

The cemetery has a long history of neglect. Writing in 1958, Christopher Fyfe complained that the cemetery was little cared for, mentioning that John Bowen, the bishop of Sierra Leone in the late 1850s had described the place as “a wild, neglected cemetery”. Lee Karen Stow made similar complaints after visiting the cemetery in 2015.

Freetown City Council Freetown City Council is the municipal government of the city of Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. It was established in 1893 and is one of the oldest municipal governments in Africa. The Freetown City Hall, located on Wallace-Johnson Stree ...

is responsible for the cemetery's upkeep. However the Ministry of Lands, Country Planning and the Environment has been issuing documents which legitimise otherwise illegal occupation of parts of the cemetery. In this way the building of first temporary structures and then more permanent buildings has been encroaching on the land. The lack of any fencing has not helped the authorities to discourage this, or the dumping of waste there which is also prevalent. In October 2016 there were accounts of graves being opened and body parts removed. Although some fences had been erected, they were not sufficient to deter trespassing during the night after cemetery staff had gone home. Three people were arrested for this, two of whom were released for lack of evidence.

Notable interments

* Neil Campbell 1827 *

Octavius Temple Octavius Temple (1784–1834), was Lieutenant Governor of Sierra Leone and Superintendent General of the Liberated Africans Department (1833), British soldier and colonial official. Family life Temple was the youngest son of Rev. William ...

1834 *

John Jeremie Sir John Jeremie (19 August 1795 – 23 April 1841) was a British judge and diplomat, Chief Justice of Saint Lucia and Governor of Sierra Leone. He was given an award in 1836 for advancing "negro freedom" after accusing the judges in Mauritius ...

1841 * John Bowen 1859

References

{{coord missing, Sierra Leone Cemeteries in Africa Buildings and structures in Freetown