(The above picture is taken from Wikipaedia and is of British military graves at Ypres, Belgium, it is not directly relevant to the current series of blogs).
My current long-term research, the history of parks and cemeteries in Hull, currently involves a study of Hull Council Committee Minute Books housed in the Search Room of Hull History Centre – reference only so cannot be borrowed. In the 1880s Hull Council’s commitment to public ‘places of resort’ mushroomed.
At Castle Street disused cemetery (s.p.b.) time and money was spent in making it into a green oasis for local citizens to visit and relax in. As well as the tree planting referred to in the previous blog which led to the illegal infant interments being discovered (incidentally some, maybe all, the trees currently on site and soon to be felled probably date from this planting) arrangements were made for a greenhouse to be erected at the site (although the redundant cemetery was still owned by the Church of England it was managed by the Burial Committee of Hull Council). It seems almost certain that the greenhouse, although it could not have been very large, would have been open to the public, maybe housing some semi-hardy plants and used by the gardeners for propagation. The minutes show that the Burial Committee employed gardeners to work in civil and disused cemeteries. Contemporary public parks often included large heated greenhouses to stimulate urban dweller’s interest in the environment. Today many stand redundant/disused or have been demolished. Parks Departments were once the flagships of local authorities but not so today with cuts in local authority funding, with re-ordered priorities and fewer professional employees. Vandalism and anti-social behaviour are often cited as explanations for abandonment of public facilities, understandably so, but evidence from our minutes shows that vandalism happened then but incidents were followed-up vigorously by law enforcement agencies.