An outline planning application 25/00665/OUT has been submitted for the Benhall Mill Depot site on land which was originally part of the cemetery but has been used as a grounds maintenance depot for many years. This planning application does not extend to any part of the rest of the Tunbridge Wells Cemetery.
Between Monday 28 September and Tuesday 6 October 2020 a specialist contractor undertook the exhumation of 15 graves within the area of the Benhall Mill Depot site. The planned work and the names of those being reinterred was reported on the BBC website on 28 March 2019. Four sets of remains were found and reinterred elsewhere in the cemetery. A Certificate of Clearance was supplied to the Council on the 12 October 2020.
Correspondence in September 2008 between the Council and the Diocese of Rochester (and subsequently the Diocese of Chichester) confirmed that the original cemetery was consecrated on 18 October 1873, with additions on 11 November 1913 and 4 October 1962. The correspondence states that the depot site is not consecrated based on the extent of the consecrated land submitted as part of the Petition for Consecration in 1962.
Updated 30 June 2025