Terrington cemetery
Beginnings of the Cemetery
Terrington Cemetery in Mowthorpe Lane opened in 1905 following the closure of the Churchyard which had been the burial place of residents of the village for centuries. The Cemetery was owned and run jointly by Terrrington with Wiganthorpe Parish Council and Ganthorpe Parish Meeting then, from 1974, by Terrington Parish Council, following the amalgamation of the two parishes.
The sources of the following information on the setting up of the Cemetery are the Samuel Wimbush diaries and Terrington with Wiganthorpe Parish Council minutes.
In February 1905, rector Samuel Wimbush ‘received a letter from the Local Government Board for closing the church yard’. The Local Government Board was the body overseeing local administration and their responsibilities included public health and drainage and sanitary matters. The letter followed discussions, inspections, letters and form-filling dating back to 1880. There were particular concerns about the south-east corner of the Churchyard where the ground falls away towards Terrington Hall. The Churchyard had basically run out of space and re-using space in Churchyards was becoming increasingly unacceptable.
The Local Government Act 1894 had set up Parish Councils as part of a process of transferring administration from the Church Vestry to secular control. The new Parish Councils were empowered to set up and administer cemeteries.
In February and March 1905, Samuel Wimbush (who was a member of the Parish Council as well as being rector), Bobby Goodwill (Clerk to the Parish Council) and Mr Luckhurst (the Castle Howard agent) examined proposed sites for a new cemetery. Various back lane sites were looked at and they ‘examined Holiday’s Croft as a site for the cemetery with Mrs Wright who has hitherto objected to it’. No doubt nimbyism was as active then as now.
Fortunately, in March 1905, Lady Carlisle saved the day by promising, at a meeting of ratepayers, to give an acre or more for a cemetery; Thomas Goodwill’s field on the Mowthorpe Lane was chosen and this was accepted at a public meeting later in the month.
At the Parish Council meeting on 10 July 1905 a resolution was proposed by Mr Upex and Mr Swann and agreed: ‘that this Council do hereby concur and agree in providing a Burial ground for the common use of the parishes of Terrington with Wigganthorpe and Ganthorpe, and in the expenses to be incurred in the provision & maintenance thereof, & otherwise in connection therewith, being divided and apportioned between the said respective parishes in accordance with the total Poor Rate assessable value for the time being of each respective parish.’
At the next Parish Council meeting on 21 August 1905 a resolution on paying for the new cemetery was proposed by Mr John Swann, seconded by John W Goodwill and agreed: ‘that application be made to the Local Govt Board to consent to the loan, to the Parish Council of Terrington, on the security of the rates of a sum not exceeding £260, for the purpose of enclosing, laying out, and otherwise preparing the said Burial Ground.’
There is a conveyance of the land, dated 27 November 1905, between the Right Horourable George James Earl of Carlisle of the one part and the parish Council of Terrington with Wigganthorpe and the Chairman and Overseers of the Parish Meeting of Ganthorpe of the other part. It is signed by the Earl of Carlisle; Thomas J Kinnear Chairman; Samuel Wimbush and John Wm Goodwill, members of the Parish Council; Thomas Freer Junior Chairman of Ganthorpe Parish Meeting; and Thomas Freer Junior and Henry Driffield Ward, Overseers of the Poor for Ganthorpe.
Enclosing and laying out the Cemetery
Meanwhile, on 14 November 1905, Samuel Wimbush records in his diary: ‘posted a letter to Lady Carlisle asking for stone for the cemetery walls.’ An exceptionally quick reply was received - only four days later, the diary records that ‘Lady Carlisle sends me word by Mr Luckhurst that we may have stone and sand at 6d a load.’
The mason who the Parish Council wanted to build the wall, John W Goodwill, was a councillor, so could not initially be given the contract but, at the meeting on 29 November 1905, Mr Kinnear proposed: ‘that application be made to the County Council to remove the disqualification of Mr John W Goodwill, a member of the Parish Council, from undertaking work on account of the Parish, it being in the opinion of the Parish Council for the benefit of the Parish, that he should act as foreman for carrying out the enclosing and levelling of the new Burial Ground.’
Presumably this was approved as, in December 1905, ‘John Goodwill, Mason began to quarry for stone for the cemetery walls, employing three men, at Bobby Goodwill’s quarry.’
In January 1906: ‘Paid mason Goodwill a large sum for labour etc for the cemetery walls from the £300 at Beckett’s Bank borrowed at 3½% of the Terrington Friendly Society.’ And in October 1906: ‘Received receipt from Mr Luckhurst for stones & sand bought from Castle Howard for the cemetery walls for £11/6/9.’ At 6d a load this represents a large number of loads.
The cemetery was set out in rows, designated A, B, C, .. O on the right-hand side of the central path, starting from the gate on Mowthorpe Lane, with the graves in each row numbered 1, 2, 3, etc starting at the central path.
For some reason the graves were not used in sequence starting from A1 – in fact the first burial was in C25 and spaces appear to have been randomly assigned from then on.
Later, rows P and Q were started to the left of the path working back from the far end, but this sequence was then abandoned and subsequently row R started just inside the gate on the left of the central path, followed by S, T, etc and spaces are now allocated in sequence along the rows. More recently, a row for cremation burials, designated ZA, was started along the wall to the right of the gate, followed by row AZ to the left of the gate.
The first burials
On 15th November 1905, Samuel Wimbush wrote: ‘Miss Walker, 74, died at Mrs Rhodes.’ And on the 16th ‘Marked out a place for Miss Walkers grave in the new cemetery with George Goodwill. It is the first grave there.’
Only two days later on the 18th: ‘Miss Walker buried in the new cemetery. This is the first interment there. Rode to the ground from the church with Dr Dougall in his motor car.’
Ellen Walker was the daughter of Scarborough ship-owner Thomas Burlinson Walker whose will makes provision for her and stipulates that, should she get married, she was to retain her own wealth. In fact she never married but led a peripatetic life living in a number of lodgings for a long time in New Malton and then with the Rhodes who had a shop on the top side of the Plump, in what is now Cliffe Cottage.
Ellen was buried in grave C25 and a cross on a base was erected on the grave but only the base remains with the inscription 'In Remembrance of Ellen Walker of Scarborough'.
The second burial was a month later in grave B28 of Elizabeth Beal, a widow of Ganthorpe aged 86, and the first headstone in the Cemetery was erected on her grave. Elizabeth had spent all her life in Ganthorpe and married Joseph Beal from Amotherby who was groom and later gardener, presumably working for Ganthorpe House. On Joseph's retirement, his and Elizabeth's son James worked as groom.
In December 1905 Samuel Wimbush records that ‘The bier arrived.’ and in March 1906 on the occasion of the third burial: ‘William Blenkarn, 57, farmer, was buried in the cemetery & the wheeled bier was used for the first time.’. Terrington Parish Council still has the bier though it has been much neglected of late and is in a poor state.
Consecration
In May 1906, Samuel Wimbush reports that: ‘Mrs Fraser, Bell & Ellen Beal signed the petition for the consecration of part of the cemetery.’. The three people here were in Ganthorpe: Annie Fraser was renting Ganthorpe Hall, Ellen Beal was the daughter of Eliabeth Beal who had recently been buried in the Cemetery, and Bell may be William Bell, gardener. There is no mention of anyone else signing the petition.
Nevertheless the petition did not fall on deaf ears as a plan showing the area to be consecrated was submitted to the Home Office and approved on 17 August 1906. The approval was signed by Home Secretary Herbert Gladstone, son of Victorian Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone.
On 1 October 1906 the Parish Council of Terrington and Wigganthorpe and the Chairman and Overseers of the Parish Meeting of Ganthorpe submitted a petition to the Archbishop of York, William Dalrymple, requesting that part of the cemetery be consecrated. The petition was signed by the same 6 signatories as the conveyance referred to above and included the map which had been sanctioned by the Home Office, annotated to that effect. A copy of the conveyance was attached as proof of ownership of the land.
On 12 November 1906, the Archbishop having satisfied himself that the petitioners did have title to the land, part of the cemetery was consecrated by the Right Reverend Robert Jarratt Bishop Suffragan of Beverley and a document was sent to the Councils to confirm the fact.
There is no mention of the petition for consecration or of the actual consecration in the Terrington with Wigganthorpe Parish Council minutes, although the Council should have agreed to the submission of the petition.
Non-conformist burials
The consecration plan shows 40 grave spaces to the west of the consecrated area in unconsecrated ground. This seems to correspond to rows M, N and O and there are a number of Methodist burials in this area.
On 12 February 1907 Samuel Wimbush reported that ‘George Goodwill called to tell me that Upex had expressed a wish that a Wesleyan minister, his friend, should officiate at his funeral.’.
James Upex was head gardener at Wiganthorpe Hall and was an active member of the Parish Council. He originated from Sawtry and had married Annie Goodrick from Terrington.
On 14 February 1907: ‘Upex buried after service in the Wesleyan chapel by two Wesleyan ministers. This is the first funeral by dissenting ministers since I have been at Terrington, nearly 42 years.’ He was buried in grave N7.
Emma Hope was a prominent Primitive Methodist and ran the Temperance Hotel which is now Hope Cottage in Main Street. She is buried in the unconsecrated area in grave N8 next to her husband James in grave N9. The headstone gives the date of death of James (20 December 1909), beloved husband of Emma, but Emma's date of death (March 1941) has not been added.
The record books and fees
The Cemetery maintains record books for Burials (with details of each burial listed chronologically), Graves (with the burials in each grave listed in grave order) and Purchases (with each purchase of right to use a space or right to erect a memorial listed) and a map kept showing the location of all burials.
Initially, the cost of a burial was 5/7 (ie 5 shillings and 7 pence) of which 5 shillings went to the gravedigger or sexton and 7 pence was the minister's fee, though the minister's fee was soon increased to 1 shilling and in 1919 the gravedigger or sexton fee was doubled to 10 shillings. Fees remained at this level until 1949 (those were the days of low inflation!) when the minister's fee shot up to 10 shillings (a 1000% increase!). There seems to be an additional 10 shillings paid to the burial authority for non-parishioners.
Grave plots could also be purchased at a cost initially of £2/2/0 although it was not necessary to pay for the plot, in which case the grave was a common grave with the possibility that someone unrelated could be buried in the same plot, though in practice graves were not dug to the depth necessary for two burials unless it was intended that a relative would be buried later in the plot. The right to erect a memorial could also be purchased and the fee for this was 10 shillings at the beginning. In practice many memorials seem to have been erected without payment and often on grave plots which had not been purchased.
Who is buried in the Cemetery?
There are approximately 650 burials in the Cemetery, an average of about 5 per year. There were only a few cremations earlier on but the cremation area started in 1982 and currently most burials are of cremated remains. There are some double graves, one triple, but mostly couples were buried in adjacent graves.
There is one centenarian buried in the Cemetery: Evelyn Ellerby (née Vester) who died in April 2007. In the 1911 census, Evelyn Annie, born in Scackleton and aged 4, is living with father William Vester, mother Annie Mary, brother William Edward, aged 7, at Haslegate Farm, now Low Mowthorpe/Birkdale.
There are also 43 burials of those in their 90s.
There are 11 stillborns and 18 infants less than one year old buried, compared to only 7 aged 1 to 4, showing perhaps that in the earlier days of the Cemetery mortality was particularly high in the first year of life.
The most common surnames are Goodwill with 42, followed by Craven 21, then Ellerby, Goodrick, Kitching, Miller and Vester with 11 each.
Surveys of the Cemetery
Following their Churchyard Survey in 2008 Terrington Arts intended to carry out a survey of the Cemetery. However, they were beaten to this by Ryedale Local History Group who, in 2012, published their survey of the Cemetery which, however, included only the memorials and not the many burials without memorials. Terrington Archive is currently undertaking a new survey to include all burials to date, to correct the many transcription errors, to take improved photographs of the memorials and to collect some biographical information on the people buried.