Cholera pit

A cholera pit was a burial place used in a time of emergency when the disease was prevalent. Such mass graves were often unmarked and were placed in remote or specially selected locations. Public fears of contagion, lack of space within existing churchyards and restrictions placed on the movements of people from location to location also contributed to their establishment and use. Many of the victims were poor and lacked the funds for memorial stones, however memorials were sometimes added at a later date.

Often the bodies of cholera victims were wrapped in cotton or linen and doused in coal-tar or pitch before placing into a coffin. Each burial was in a pit 8 ft deep and liberally sprinkled with quicklime. The bodies were sometimes burnt before interment.

It is considered that the cholera risk posed through disturbance of cholera pits from the 19th century is non-existent as transmission is through contaminated water or food.

An early 19th century incidence of asiatic cholera in Europe was recorded in Russia and other continental countries in the spring of 1831. The first occurrence in England was in the Autumn of 1831 when it reached Sunderland, by 1832 it was at Exeter, and it spread rapidly through the British Isles, reaching Kilmarnock in July 1832. Other less severe outbreaks were recorded in 1849 and 1853. In the USA Outbreaks of cholera took place in 1834, 1849, and 1861.

At Barrmill in North Ayrshire the tradition is that the disease was passed on from a group of gipsies camped on Whin Hill that local boys had gone out to meet. Troops were regularly placed to prevent entry or exit during cholera outbreaks and normal burial in Beith was impossible and impractical, given the number of deaths. The burial site was fenced off and bordered by trees, kept in order by the Crawford Bros. from the factory until they died. It has been neglected since then.

In 1834 cholera broke out in Beith and although 'clothes were burned, bedding fumigated, stairs and closes whitewashed, a nurse who was a veteran of the Dalry outbreak was engaged and a ban placed on entertainments at funerals.' There were 100 cases in September 1834, 205 people were eventually affected with 105 deaths. Some of the people were buried in the parish churchyard, but others were buried in a field, close to what became Spier's School, on the little common south-west of where the Geilsland Road meets the Powgree Burn. Robert Spier, the father of John Spier, was a member of the local Health Board.

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