The Jewish cemetery in Penzance, Cornwall, has been described as “by far the finest” of the 25 Georgian Jewish cemeteries in Britain outside of London. Believed founded in the 1740s, the cemetery, which includes about 50 well preserved gravestones, is surrounded by a high stone wall dating from 1845 and includes the ceremonial hall/tahara house. It is listed by English Heritage as a Grade 2 heritage site.
The last Jews in Penzance moved away in around 1913. The long-disused cemetery, accessed via a passage between 19 and 20 Leskinnick Terrace, is owned by the Jewish Board of Deputies but is maintained by the Penzance town clerk’s office and Penlee House Museum and Gallery.
A campaign has recently been launched to raise funds to restore its walls and also to contact and involve descendants of Penzance Jews in its care and maintenance. A “Friends of the Penzance Jewish Cemetery” has been founded.
Writes Simon Parker on the This Is Cornwall web site:
Concealed in a maze of terraces and lanes, the cemetery is protected by high granite walls, with the result that many people who have lived in Penzance all their lives remain unaware of its existence. […]Leslie Lipert, treasurer of Kehillat Kernow, the Jewish Community of Cornwall, explained that as with any heritage site, running repairs were necessary. he is now hoping to raise sufficient funds to restore its preimeter walls.
“The families who are buried here reveal a remarkable and interesting history,” said Mr Lipert. “Many descendants of these families, now scattered throughout the UK and abroad, are becoming interested in their Cornish roots. Those people who are organising the fund-raising and awareness of the cemetery through the Friends of Penzance Jewish Cemetery are anxious to make contact with these descendants.
“The lives of those Jewish families had a major impact on the commercial, religious and economic life of Penzance. Its miraculous survival is due to the far-sightedness of the Jewish congregation, who in 1844 bought the freehold to the whole site and in 1845 began to completely enclose it. It is these walls which now need restoration work to ensure this now ‘closed’ burial ground is preserved.”
Lipert, who has been appointed by the Board of Deputies to overseen fund-raising efforts, may be contacted at [email protected].
The cemetery’s custodian, Keith Pearce, has written about the cemetery in the book he co-authored with Helen Fry, “The Lost Jews of Cornwall,” and in his forthcoming book “The Jewish of Cornwall: A History,” to be published in 2014 by Halsgrove.
See detailed information, list of people buried, photos at Jewish Communities & Records UK
Penzance town web site information on the cemetery