One aspect of the relatively small area called Trippett (s.p.b.) that I know something of is that between 1775 and 1855 it was the site of St. Mary Lowgate’s detached burial ground. After 1855 deceased parishioners would have been buried in Hull’s General Cemetery, opened 1847, although as this was a private/commercial cemetery it would not have accommodated all parishioners. As the earliest part of Western Municipal Cemetery was not opened until 1861 and Hedon Road Municipal Cemetery not until 1875 the provision is briefly unclear.
Hull was divided into two parishes – Holy Trinity and St. Mary’s, the former being the larger. By the mid 18th century churchyards countrywide were literally bulging with human remains and the creation/consecration of detached burial grounds was the most obvious solution, particularly in densely populated urban areas. Holy Trinity’s first parish detached burial ground was the Castle St. site currently being partly obliterated by road building works on the A63 in Hull’s town centre (for a study of this site see my article in Hull Civic Society’s Newsletter recently).
The site of Trippett’s detached/disused burial ground is today towards the east end of Freetown Way at a point where the Registry Office use to be, there is a small grassy area on part of the site. It was just south of the Charterhouse alms-houses in the 18th century.
By the late 19th century the maintenance of disused burial grounds had been taken on by the Parks and Cemeteries Committee of the Municipal Corporation. This Committee also kept tidy and presentable the disused churchyards at the churches themselves. For example in 1882 flowers growing in ‘rustic vases’ were placed in St. Mary’s churchyard and at Holy Trinity either side of ‘pathway leading to the western entrance’.
Parks and Cemeteries workers strove to make disused burial grounds inviting places of resort.
The photo. above shows a fine stand of snowdrops in Castle Street disused burial ground.