The picture above is taken from Neave, D. Lost Churches and Chapels of Hull (1991, 51) and shows a drawing by F.S. Smith of the Georgian church of St. Mary’s Church, Sculcoates built around 1759. The churchyard shown could well have been a quiet ‘place of resort’. The church building was demolished early in the Great War, although as was the case often with church demolitions the tower was left intact for a number of years, but the graveyard remains (now in a shabby condition) and was by the late 19th century a ‘disused burial ground’ in the care of Hull Corporation’s Cemetery Committee. Sculcoates had been a medieval village/parish to the north of Hull and it was only after the building of the ‘New Dock’ (Queen’s Gardens) that new streets to the north of the Dock spread into Sculcoates parish. It was in 1855 that the churchyards of St. Mary’s Sculcoates, Holy Trinity, Hull, St. Mary Lowgate, Hull and St. Peter’s, Drypool (east of the River Hull) were closed as was Trippett St. detached burial ground (s.p.b.) with Castle St. detached burial ground (s.p.b.) being closed six years later. All from then on became disused burial grounds and were managed by the Cemetery Committee as ‘places of resort’.
Cemetery Minutes at Hull History Centre show that in 1881 the ‘annual inspection’ of cemeteries and disused burial grounds in the care of this Municipal Committee involved a visit to; Holy Trinity ‘church ground’, Church Side, St. Mary’s church ground, Lowgate, Drypool church ground, Drypool Square, St. Mark’s church ground, St. Marks Street (see Lost Churches and Chapels of Hull, p. 58), Friends burial ground, Hodgson Street, St. Mary’s burial ground, Trippett, Sculcoates old church ground, Air Street (see above), the Board’s Ground, Hull General Cemetery (s.l.b.) and the ‘Hebrew’s burial ground’, Hessle Road.
(to be continued)