The Old Town municipal cemetery was consecrated in 1841 as an overflow cemetery for St Mary's Churchyard that is situated in the main town of Bideford (Tower Street). Previously this Land had been owned by the Bideford Bridge Trust and held the graves of victims of the 1741 smallpox epidemic and of French prisoners from the Napoleonic wars. There is a party wall that separates this cemetery from Bideford Public Cemetery, established for the non-conformists in 1842. The Old Town municipal cemetery was closed in 1889 and the gravestones were placed around the edge in 1957 to make a large green space. Today the cemetery is a park and is maintained by the local council. Some gravestones remain around the walls of the park.