Cholera Monument Grounds and Clay Wood

About

The Cholera Monument is a memorial in Sheffield, England, to the victims of a cholera epidemic of 1832. In a 2022 lecture, Richard C. Keller, Professor of Medical History and Bioethics in the University of Wisconsin–Madison, identified the Monument, the Cefn Golau Cholera Cemetery, Tredegar, Blaenau Gwent and Duffy's Cut in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as examples of 'a handful of memorial plaques [sic] designating mass burial sites of cholera victims from the nineteenth century'.

Of the 402 disease victims, 339 were buried in grounds between Park Hill and Norfolk Park adjoining Clay Wood. Money from the treasurers of the Board of Health was set aside for a monument for the site. The monument was designed by M.

E. Hadfield, sculpted by Earp and Hobbs and completed in 1835. It is a neo-Gothic pinnacle and has a plaque which names one victim, 'John Blake', who held the office of Master Cutler.

Also it notes that the foundation stone was laid by the poet James Montgomery. The monument is situated in gardens laid out around the monument in the 1850s and next to Clay Wood, an ancient woodland. These were given to the city by the Duke of Norfolk in 1930.

A shaded path laid between 1971 and...