Group offer to look after overgrown privately-owned cemetery

Richard Youle, Local Democracy Reporter

A group hoping to revive an overgrown historic cemetery, owned by a foundation based in London, said it had volunteers ready and willing to tidy and care for the graves.

Concerned about the plot, which is overgrown, with brambles and Japanese knotweed taking hold, the Friends of Bethel Sketty Cemetery is trying to get involved.

The group would like to maintain the cemetery and ultimately take it over via a charitable trust.

It has many members with relatives and ancestors buried at the four-acre site between Carnglas Road and Prospect Place, which is now owned by a group called the Al-Khoei Benevolent Foundation.

The foundation bought the adjoining Bethel Chapel and a neighbouring property for £305,000 in 2024 from previous trustees who said a dwindling and ageing congregation had led to the very difficult decision to sell.

The foundation secured consent from Swansea Council last month to convert the grade two-listed Bethel Chapel into a youth activity centre, part-time education centre and a place of worship for the teaching of the Islamic faith.

According to Friends of Bethel Sketty Cemetery there have only been two grass cuts in three years – one in June 2023 before the foundation’s takeover and one after in June 2025. The group had maintenance concerns prior to the change in ownership.

Fiona Nixon, acting chairwoman of Friends of Bethel Sketty Cemetery, said it had contributed 25% of the £5,400 cost of the 2025 grass cut, the foundation 25% and Sketty councillors 50% via their community budgets.

Mrs Nixon said the friends group had met foundation representatives, and that it would also be willing to act as burial managers.

She claimed very little maintenance was being done and that some ground was becoming destabilised. “People have been very generous and given us money,” she said. “It’s difficult when you don’t own the site.”

The Local Democracy Reporting Service contacted the London-based foundation, which said it would look into the matter but didn’t respond further, and also knocked on the door of Alaa Tahir, of Uplands, who was named as the applicant in the listed building consent application.

When no-one answered, the Local Democracy Reporting Service left a card and a note asking if his group considered itself responsible for the cemetery’s maintenance, whether it might allow Friends of Bethel Sketty Cemetery to take it over and maintain it, and whether access would be retained for the community.

In a response Mr Tahir sent a message saying: “The cemetery is privately owned and managed by the owners, who retain responsibility for its ownership and management. We have have no further comment.”

Missionary

Around 11,000 people have been laid to rest in the cemetery’s 4,000-odd graves over the years. They include Swansea-born missionary Griffith John, who served in China for more than five decades – preaching, translating the Bible, and establishing schools and hospitals – prior to his death aged 80 in 1912.

Also buried there is Swansea-born James Owen, who changed his name to David Lewis in order to join the British Army and went on to fight in the notorious battle of Rorke’s Drift in South Africa in 1879, and academic and chemist John Cadogan. The cemetery has several Commonwealth war graves too.

Friends of Bethel Sketty Cemetery member Janet Nielson recalled being taught in the chapel hall when it was used by the nearby school she attended as a classroom.

“When our teacher saw a hearse coming down the road we had to stand, turn and face the road and the boys would have to take off their caps,” she said.

Friends of Bethel Sketty Cemetery formed in 2022, has nearly 600 members, and has its annual general meeting at 2pm on April 25 at Sketty Community Church Hall. Chairwoman Mrs Nixon said she already has 19 volunteers who were prepared to carry out maintenance. “We would need the owners’ permission,” she said.

There were 118 objections to the recent application to change it into a into a youth activity centre, part-time education centre and a place of worship for the teaching of the Islamic faith, although some related to an earlier version of it.

Unauthorised work

The council’s planning committee heard at its February meeting that unauthorised work had taken place inside. After being told about subsequent reinstatement and mitigation work, and on the advice of planning officers, they voted in favour of granting listed building consent by nine votes to one.

The previous month the council had issued the chapel owners two enforcement notices relating to unauthorised activities they said had been undertaken there.

Objectors remain concerned about potential congestion problems on one-way Carnglas Road once the chapel’s new use comes into effect.

Sketty councillor Mike Day said he and his ward colleagues have worked with the friends group and the owners of Bethel cemetery, and he confirmed that councillors had contributed £2,700 towards the £5,400 grass cut last year.

Colin Fenn, vice-chairman of the National Federation of Cemetery Friends, has been helping the friends group. With a bit of “community love”, he said, cemeteries could be improved and kept relevant.

“We’ve got a couple of ‘friends of’ groups which have acquired a whole site, and one or two have reinstated burials,” he said.

Mr Fenn reckoned Bethel cemetery had space for 100-plus burials, and also more in existing grave plots.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service also contacted a representative of the chapel’s previous owners prior to 2024, but she declined to comment.