Godalming Town Council staff have been busily mapping both Nightingale and Eashing cemeteries in a project that will make it easier for people to locate the graves of loved ones.

Work started on the online 'virtual cemetery' as part of a longer-term project to reuse grave space at Nightingale Cemetery.

Town council staff have mapped all the graves at Nightingale Cemetery but work is still ongoing at Eashing, where around 2,200 of the 8,000 or so graves have been added.

A link to the record will be made available on the town council website. That link can be accessed by smartphone, and will provide a map of the grave and the associated burial records. Godalming Town Council has a photographic record of all memorials in Eashing Cemetery, and these can also be added to the datebase.

Rita Tong from Godalming Town Council told last night's meeting of the Joint Burial Committee that the move would make it easier for monumental masons and gravediggers to locate specific plots, and also for relatives and genealogists to locate family graves.

Councillor Peter Martin told the meeting: "People do take an interest in their ancestry, and this is very much to be encouraged. I am very much in favour."