Ryde Social Heritage Group research the social history of the citizens of Ryde, Isle of Wight. Documenting their lives, businesses and burial transcriptions.
RYDE SOCIAL HERITAGE GROUP
Based at Ryde Cemetery Heritage & Learning Centre. Preserving, documenting and promoting the social history of Ryde on the Isle of Wight.
  • MENU

St Thomas’ Church

St Thomas’ Church is located in the centre of Ryde, at the bottom of the High Street, in St Thomas’ Square.StThomasChurch1c

The church closed in 1959; it remains unoccupied and unused today.

The southern part of the church graveyard was turned into a Garden of Rest in 1986.

For a map showing the location of St Thomas’ Church please click here

 

St Thomas’ Churchyard Maps

 

 

Photographs showing the southern churchyard before the garden of rest was laid out.

Hand drawn maps were produced by Jack Wheeler in the 1970s giving the location of the graves and are reproduced below.  Today it is difficult to locate many of the burials and these maps do not reflect the current positions of the headstones. Many of the memorials have since been removed, repositioned or used in the crazy paving around the seating areas. The maps should be used together with the alphabetical index giving the list of grave names.

RSHG ST001 – South West Centre

RSHG ST002 – Southern Centre

RSHG ST003 – Northern

RSHG has now transcribed and photographed the visible markers in the southern part and a new map showing these has been produced (see below). The Northern part of the graveyard (north side of the church building) is not accessible at present but contains many memorials probably in their original positions. There are also many more memorials inaccessible inside the church and there are vaults below. The maps should be used together with the alphabetical index giving the list of grave names.

RSHG ST001A – Visible markers in the Southern Rest Garden (maps ST001 & ST002 combined) New October 2018

RSHG ST003A – Markers in the Northern Churchyard (currently inaccessible) New October 2018

 

St Thomas’ Alphabetical Index

The alphabetical indexes contain the names on all the graves from the book ‘Inscriptions on the Memorials’ compiled by Jack Wheeler in 1975 and those visible markers either standing in the garden or parts of memorials in the crazy paving today.

Key to Alphabetical Indexes

St Thomas’ Churchyard A – Z  Last updated December 2022

St Thomas’ Memorials inside the Church A – Z

For any enquiries you may have about the maps, indexes or mapping please contact us here.