Katharine Tompkins and her roommates said goodbye to their friend Paloma, a Roborovski dwarf hamster, just a couple of weeks ago, on 21st January. Remembering the way that Paloma and her sister used to cuddle up together, Newcastle University student Tompkins knew she couldn’t just dispose of the remains of their beloved friend casually.

Unfortunately, their student house has no garden suitable for a burial. But Tompkins recalled a small, peaceful, triangular plot of land in Jesmond Dene, close to where Armstrong Bridge crosses Ouseburn, and not far from Pet’s Corner.

This part of the Dene is known as Coleman’s Field and the plot is the site of headstones that remember some 20 pets. So the students buried Paloma there, planting two wooden sticks nearby as markers.

Tompkins had read some of the epitaphs on the headstones before, when she had been running through Jesmond Dene. “They had the names of pets – mostly dogs – and also the breed of the dog and the years it was alive,” Tompkins said. A closer look reveals that most of the pets were buried around 1970. The newest one belongs to Emma Jane, a poodle who died in 1991, at the age of 15.

Like Tompkins and her roommates, many Jesmond residents think this piece of land has always been a pet cemetery. However, Dawn Howe, a ranger who has been living in the cottages at Pets Corner for 25 years, says it has never been an official “pet cemetery”. “It is just a quiet corner of the dene,” Howe said. “It was always intended to be a more informal spot, like a woodland burial.”

Few people can remember how and why the first headstone appeared. Les Ford, who started working at Pet’s Corner in 1973 as a gardener, believes burials on this plot began around 1969. However, by the end of the 1970s, the “cemetery” was closed for burials by the park manager. “If it hadn’t been, the whole of Coleman’s Field would be a cemetery by now,” said Bob Broon, a ranger who worked in Jesmond Dene from 1990 to 1992.

Howe thinks the “cemetery” is unlikely to reopen officially, given health and safety laws. “It is, after all, a park, not a pet cemetery,” Howe said.

Ford told JesmondLocal that before the “cemetery” was closed, it was the staff at Pet’s Corner who did the digging and maintenance. “The cost of interring a pet there, I was told, was exorbitant,” Ford said.

Some residents recall this small “cemetery” being overgrown, but it seems like someone is doing the weeding around the headstones. However, some of the epitaphs are now too faded and scratched to read.

The “cemetery” sits at the edge of Coleman’s Field. “The centre of the field is cut regularly and treated like sports pitch grass,” explained Howe. “The edges are only usually cut twice a year to encourage flowering annuals, as this allows much greater biodiversity for both plants and animals. As Jesmond Dene is a designated Strategic Wildlife Corridor, many of the management activities are carried out to benefit the environment as well as people. The pet burial area forms part of the long grass regime. It would usually be cut late September, after annuals have seeded.”

Despite the closure, the demand for places to bury pets remains. Although the “cemetery” is officially closed, many “fresh mounds of earth can often be seen. There are a lot more pets down there than the headstones would indicate,” said Howe.

In 2005, Claire Josephine, a self-employed linguist who lives in Newcastle had her dog cremated in Durham because “at the time, that was the only place,” she recalled. In 2018, Tom Caulker, a nightclub owner who lives on Manor House Road, also had his dog cremated after the city council refused his application to bury his pet in Jesmond Dene.

Caulker even offered £1,000 to buy a plot and dig the hole himself at night to avoid attracting attention, but the council could not be persuaded. “My dog’s ashes are now on my mantlepiece. I still hope to bury her in the Dene, with a small headstone, as she loved it down there,” Caulker said.

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Dr Eric Tourigny, lecturer in historical archaeology at Newcastle University, paid a visit to the Jesmond Dene “cemetery” in 2019 as part of a project to create the UK’s first database of animal memorials. According to his academic research, pet cemeteries show “the conflicted relationship between humans and companion animals in British society – from beloved pets to valued family members – and the increasing belief in animal afterlives.”

Meanwhile, Tompkins and her friends didn’t know, but Paloma is not the only hamster buried here. Almost 40 years ago, 10-year-old Floyd Hayes buried his hamster Lucy at the river’s edge of the “cemetery”. He’s now a creative director who has been living in New York for 17 years, but when he returns to Newcastle, he plans to visit this memorable place. “She was my first critter so it was all exciting. I remember how much it would tickle when she ran over my neck,” Hayes said.

PCS Pet Cremation Services, a half hour drive from Jesmond in East Boldon, offers pet cremation and pet burial services.