The Civil Cemetery, Barton upon Humber;
A Study in Landscape History and Ecology Impact

St. Mary's and St. Peter's churchyards and the local cemetery on Barrow Road are pleasant and interesting parts of Barton parish. Additionally the ecosystem of the latter two provide habitats for birds, small mammals, insects and wild plants- although maintenance regimes are more dedicated by notions of neatness than by habitat creation. Since the late nineteenth century interment has only been in the cemetery; a part of the parish commanding fine views over the town further down the dry valley side to the west and over the Humber Estuary across to East Yorkshire and Hull to the north.

The purpose of this essay is to;

1 Construct an overview of interment through time.
2 Trace the establishment and development of Barrow Road cemetery in the context of modern interment provision.
3 To commend the area to local people and visitors.
4 It is not the purpose of this essay to analyse biographical or historic evidence carved or displayed on monuments; nor is it intended to study the changing fashions of monuments; valuable as these studies are elsewhere.

It is almost certain that between the second and fifth centuries a series of farmsteads were strung out along the south Humber bank just above the then warpland marsh. It is likely that the household burial plots would have been the norm with random burials for slaves, infants, etc.. local Celts would have had a more centralised burial point, particularly for high status persons and this may have influenced Romano-British burial practices by the fifth century ( see Geoff Bryant, 1994 chapter 3, The Early History Of Barton upon Humber, W.E.A. Barton branch ). The large pre-Christian Anglo Saxon cemetery immediately east of the Old Mill ( Market Place ) excavated in campaigns between 1939 and 1990, has revealed a wealth of detail about inhumations from the sixth to eighth centuries and shows that burials had become more centralised in this developing Anglian community ( see Bryant, 1994, pp. 31-53 ).

The building of the tenth century private chapel on the site of the west tower of St. Peter's church led to, or added to, an extensive Anglian Christian cemetery. Subsequent extensions to the layout plan led to an expansion of the churchyard for throughout the Middle Ages interment was monopolised by the Christian Church and , as one of the seven sacraments, burial took place only on consecrated ground, usually in the immediate vicinity of the place of worship. Burial fees formed a substantial part of a church's income and were jealously guarded by Minster churches as chapels of ease developed in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Acquisition of burial rights may be perceived as the point at which a chapel becomes a parish church, although the history of St. Mary's is complex in this regard.

It is not the aim of this essay to detail medieval burial practices or to explore the nature of medieval churchyards. The east-west orientation of inhumations was standard but not universal. During the Middle Ages precise identification of particular burials was not the norm except for high status ( high-income ) burials in the floor of the church itself or in tombs incorporated into the furniture of the church. Common folk related to the site rather than to a particular point.

Long term concentration of burials in a constricted location ( in the case of St. Peter's over 900 years ) created particular problems. Bones unearthed by grave diggers were sometimes deposited in charnel houses attached to the church-few survive, St. Mary's, St. Leonard's, Hythe, being notable exceptions. As land rose retaining walls were built needing a high level of maintenance.

Of course not everyone would have been buried in churchyards; battle, murder, fatal accidents, social exclusion or detachment from Church practices, could result in random interments. Currently interments do not have to be in civil or church cemeteries, although sites have to be approved by the local Environmental Health department.

As in so many things, a solution to the problem of overcrowded churchyards was pioneered by Napoleonic social reform. Civil cemeteries began in France when in 1804 the newly elevated Emperor forbade further churchyard interments. Private cemeteries began in Britain late in Georgian times- Liverpool Necropolis opened in 1825 and set the pace with planed ( emparked ) landscape inviting perambulation and recreation. Social reformers demanded similar provision for the poor and from the 1850 Metropolitan Interment Act onwards a series of Burial Acts gave the Board of Health powers to establish new cemeteries and to buy up private one.

Cremation was given increased social credibility when in 1874 Queen Victoria's surgeon founded the Cremation Society. In 1885 Woking Cemetery had built the first crematorium and by the 1930's Golder's Green Crematorium was servicing 25% of the nations cremations.

Like all aspects of social culture, burial evidence has been largely directed by fashion. Headstones, a post Reformation fashion, developed in artistry up to the mid nineteenth century and in the twentieth century often reflected Art Nouveau or Functional architectural styles. Use of local stone was normal until the building of a national railway network; even so diocesan regulations often forbade the use of ' foreign stone '. Civil cemeteries have always had regulations about the size, style and fabric of memorials, they accepted the Victorian preoccupation with defining personal plots and with reflecting in death one's perceived status in life, albeit in a regulated manner. In reality many burials remained recorded only on parish records or cemetery authority records.

Most civil burial grounds were created under the provisions of one or more of a series of Burial Acts passed by Parliament between 1852 and 1885. Barton was unusual in that the minutes of the Local Board of Health, created by the terms of the Public Health Act of 1848 and the Local Government Act of 1858, make no mention of the cemetery in 1866/67 until its powers were taken over by the newly created Urban District Council in 1895.

In Barton the existing burial authority took the initiative when in 1867 the Burial Board for the parishes of St. Peter's and St. Mary's tendered a contract and specification for burial ground work. This was presumably by the terms of the 1855 Burial Act, section 11, which empowered churchwardens to convene a vestry meeting in parishes where no burial board had been created but where a new burial ground was felt needed. Detailed late 19th century maps show that the site chosen was a rectangular post Enclosure field north of Barrow Road and between Seaforth ( although the present house would not have stood in 1867 ) to the west and to the east a narrow rectangular plot behind a small farmstead.

The Dead House no longer exists but on the 1887 map it is shown in the north west corner with a path leading to it from the main drive; the man made mound on which it stood is clearly visible in the present day topography. The writer does not know when this building was demolished, of any pictures of the building or when the chapels ceased their original function. References to ' ridges' , ' gables' and specific blue roof tiles for the Dead House suggest a design similar to that of the Chapels, however the floor was to be of brick set in sand and the window glass a quarter inch ' rough cast sheet '. Presumably here the coffins were housed for viewing prior to burial.

Of the access paths shown on the 1887 map only the main drive which led to the chapels, the drive around the chapels and the drive to the east of the chapels
( later extended ) remain hard surfaced, the configuration of some of the other paths is still in evidence on the ground although not the two paths leading to the Dead House. Indeed a study of headstone dates in this area and of the 1908 map suggests that this building ceased to be accessed early on; however the round building shown on the 1887 map figures on subsequent maps through to 1937.

At the first meeting of Barton upon Humber Urban District Council on 4th January 1895 the Rev. Hopkin proposed that the, " Powers, duties, property, debts and liabilities of the Burial Board for the parishes of St. Peter and St. Mary in Barton upon Humber ... under the Burial Acts 1852-1885 shall be transferred to the Council as from 15th April next". The motion was eventually carried on the 1st March 1895 and in April the Clerk to the U.D.C. took custody of the Deeds, Register, Book of Accounts and other documents of the Burial Board. A Burial Committee was appointed comprising the Chairman and six councillors, witle the Clerk had a Registrar of Burials added to his responsibilities.

Two hand written minute books survive for the Burial Committee, one 1915 to 1929, the other 1929 to 1932. The surviving typed minutes of Barton UDC refer to the presentation of Burial Committee minutes, but few details are given. By the late 1920's it had become the Burial and Allotments Committee ( allotments being land allocated to ex servicemen where the Caistor Road estate now stands). By 1933 it had been subsumed to the Park, Hunt Charity, Burials, Allotments and Forage Committee.

However there seems no clear archival reference to the acquisition of plots 663 and 664. Again there is a clearly visible ridge defining its boundary with the original cemetery and certain shrubs and mature trees were clearly planted here. The headstones in this area of the cemetery date from the 1910s,( including some references to Great War casualties ), whereas headstones immediately west of this boundary date from the early 1900s ( the burial plan for the original was roughly west to east ) and prove that the 'Old Cemetery' had become full.

The siting of the War Memorial, the acquisition of field 665 and the creation of a second cemetery entrance off Barrow Road was followed by the layout of drive and paths seen on 1932 map, and today. However the exact sequence is not clear. In June 1928 a footpath was constructed between, " The old and new cemetery", so the " tarspraying" of paths and roads in the summer of 1927 may have just been in the original cemetery. The decision in 1931 of the annual Visiting Committee that the Eastern Cemetery should not be " Beautified until laid out", fuels the uncertainty.

An examination of this site, as elsewhere, reveals a complex interaction between physical, historical and environmental factors. To the ' explorer ' the evidence gives clues to the past and informs best practice for the present and future. To neglect or abuse the landscape is to assault our environment, culture and very self.

By Richard Clarke Civic Society