Castle St. graveyard was a detached burial ground for the parish of Holy Trinity, Hull from 1783 to 1861. Later in its life as a functioning burial ground it stood near Railway Dock immediately west of which was the initial terminus of the Hull-Selby Railway, before Paragon Station was built in 1848. The burial ground site now stands beside the A63 at a point called Castle St. and at a busy junction giving access to Ferensway and Commercial Rd. This whole section of the South Orbital Rd. has become a serious traffic bottleneck and for some years various plans for road improvement schemes in the area have been considered. There now seems to be some consensus as to the preferred plan one consequence of which will be the removal of the surface evidence in what was Castle St. burial ground to enable a new section of road to be built.
Since being ‘decommissioned’ the site has gradually become a ‘green oasis’ right beside a busy road carrying constant heavy traffic, consequently it has not been much resorted to as a retreat for quiet contemplation. Unfortunately also this spot, shaded by mature deciduous trees, has been despoiled with little done to rectify the matter.
So will the human remains be dug-up and, presumably, buried in a mass-grave elsewhere? Although the road foundations would not probably go as deep as most burials this, nevertheless, seems to be the intention.
With the Burial Acts of the 1850s and the development of civil cemeteries soon after was Castle St. the last of Holy Trinity’s detached burial grounds? Answer – no.
(to be continued).