TO local people it is known as the paupers' corner. You could walk straight past and not realise anyone is buried there.

Linthorpe Cemetery is the largest graveyard in Middlesbrough. To reach paupers' corner, you park by the town's West Lane Hospital entrance and walk.

Along the way you pass the graves of more fortunate folk, who died leaving relatives who could afford to mark their passing with a proper headstone. The marble is washed and clean. In many cases, there are fresh flowers.

As you approach paupers' corner, the picture changes somewhat. Here, the grass is not so neatly trimmed, in places it is several inches high, and the recent heavy rain turns the ground beneath your shoes to mud.

Paupers' corner is a small clearing where the poor are buried. No headstones mark their passing, precious few fresh flowers are laid on the graves.

It is here, beneath a large tree, that scores of tiny babies have been buried over many years. Walk through the clearing and you can see the depressions in the ground where their small bodies are placed.

Some are marked with little wooden crosses, which bear not a name, just a number.

In another area, a plot about the size of an adult grave has been marked out. No grass grows on top, and the earth is covered with leaves blown from the trees. Recently, someone has added a small plaque with the name of a stillborn child. But the baby is not alone in the grave. This small patch of bare earth is the final resting place for 60 infants.

In many cases, the parents of these babies were not paupers. They were not bad parents, they probably cared passionately about their children. They just had the misfortune to have an infant who died.

It is difficult to understand the stigma that used to be attached to stillbirth. Nowadays, an entire counselling service is devoted to providing reassurance and support. Fifty years ago, you would not have been so lucky.

Hospitals disposed of stillborn babies with the maximum possible speed and in utmost secrecy. They did so not because they were brutal or uncaring, but in the belief that they were saving families from pain.

This did not just happen in Middlesbrough. It was taking place across the country.

Erica Stewart, an assistant fund raising manager at the Stillbirth And Neonatal Death Society (Sands), said: "It was normal for parents not to be told where their babies were buried. They were told to get on with their lives without worrying about what happened. It was a case of 'you can always have another one'."

Hospitals only had a token allowance to pay for the burials. For that reason, the babies were often buried in common plots.

Today, if parents choose to let the authorities handle their baby's funeral, they are kept fully informed of what happens.

They are given the choice of burial or cremation, and even if they opt for a public burial, for which the authority pays, they retain the option of buying the plot later and erecting a headstone.

According to Ms Stewart, a desire to cut costs was not the only reason for common graves. "If the hospital took care of the burials, they would bury the babies together or with an adult female, thinking it would be better for the children to have company," she said.

"Often, parents find the fact that their babies have been buried with others quite comforting."