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Section 1 Churchyard burials
The Ecclesfield Churchyard Transcription
Compiled by Mr. F. S. Hague between 1959 and 1962
Mr. Hague was an engineer working for the YEB (Yorkshire Electricity Board) and a member of CEMS (Church of England Men’s Society); who in 1959 and in collaboration with other members of CEMS undertook the cleaning and surveying of the churchyard and its gravestones.
Over a period of three years Mr. Hague then went on to document the survey work and produce the plans and indexes now available on St Mary’s Website. In the same period he wrote a series of nineteen articles for the Ecclesfield Parish Church Magazine and an article for the YEB News.
These articles have now been scanned and compiled into a single document for all to read.
These articles provide an interesting and often slightly humorous insight into some of the more interesting gravestones in the churchyard.
St Mary’s - Churchyard Burial Records
You can use these records to search for ancient burials that took place within St Mary's Churchyard
The records are photographic copies of documents that were hand drawn and written up by Mr. F. S. Hague in the period 1959 to 1962 and then later archived. The quality of the copies is somewhat limited by the deterioration of the original works
To use these records you first need to download or open the appropriate Surname Index
Each index is bookmarked for easy searching - just click on the Bookmark Tool at the left-hand side of the Adobe Reader window
The Surname Indexes are laid out as follows
For each surname the forenames are listed in order of date of death or burial, each forename being followed by the age at death, date of death or burial and the burial stone number
See example below
ABDY
John 59 15-7-1795 804
Anne 55 28-7-1795 804
Surname Index
Abd to Cha
Cha to Fis
Fle to Hew
Hew to Loc
Burial Stone Locations
Loc to Nut
Oat to Sin
Smi to Vic
Wad to You
Churchyard Plans
Burial Stone Locations
Once you have found the burial stone number download or open the Burial Stone Locations
and the Churchyard Plans
Now find the burial stone number in the Burial Stone Locations file
At the side of it will be a Plot Number and a grid square coordinate. e.g. 536 Plot 4 G 8
You can then locate the burial stone using the Plot Number and the grid square coordinates
in the Churchyard Plans file
The churchyard consists of 7 burial plots and 1158 identified burials. Please bear in mind that a particular burial stone (or part of it) may appear in one or more squares on the grid pattern.
Please note that these indexes do not include records of burials in the ‘Old Graveyard’ adjacent to the Gatty Hall or the City Council run Cemetery on Priory Road.
For the ‘Old Graveyard in the Cemetery’ see Section 2 below
Burial Records for St. Mary’s Cemetery – Priory Road
This section contains over 6000 Burial Records of individuals interred in the St Mary's Section of Ecclesfield Cemetery from 1875 Onwards
Please note that we do not hold any information in respect of the remaining civil areas of the cemetery, for information on these areas you need to contact
Sheffield Bereavement Services
Or
St. Mary’s Cemetery - An Introduction
In the Cemetery across the road from the church is a parcel of land which belongs to St. Mary’s Church that is divided in to three sections, North, South, and Old burial which is also known as the Gatty Hall section due to the closeness of it to the Cemetery.
While doing research for people looking for burials in the Cemetery Linda and I took on the task of surveying the area. As we had surveyed the St. Mary’s Churchyard previously we had an idea of what was required to do the task. We knew the Cemetery was a lot larger than the Churchyard and a lot more work would be needed in clearing the headstones in order for us to find the inscription wrote upon them.
We planned to record the inscriptions and use with the information taken with the Ecclesfield Burial books to be used later in compiling a register of burials which could be accessed by the public to use. We started recording the inscriptions from the headstones, each plot in turn, row after row covering the area until the weather conditions of rain, hail, and eventuality snow left us too cold to continue. In the remaining days of the year we would use our time by checking our records matching names to headstones and plot numbers from the maps. This became a bigger job than we envisaged as at times names did not match up to plots numbers, so more work had to be undertaken viva the headstones and Church records or with another visit to the Sheffield Archives. More time was taken up when people would approach us while we were working in the Cemetery asking us for help in finding a family headstone.
As the years went by we finalized our work and recorded it on to the computer. Mr Peter Lonsborough from Ecclesfield Church helped us with the final composition of our work and has updated a map which relates to what can be seen on in the Cemetery. We have helped many people in finding their relatives graves over the years, many who have been researching their family ancestry.
Now by accessing the St. Mary’s Website they will be able to obtain the information they require to continue with their family tree and visit their loved ones graves. Our work has taken six years to complete from start to finish and we have met some lovely people from all over the world who have become our friends which we meet up with on their visits to the Church.
Mrs J. Fell & Mrs L. Smith February 2017
St. Mary's Cemetery - Priory Road - How it came to be
It was on the 1st of April 1873, that the Archbishop of York consecrated the additional cemetery across the road.
The land was owned and was given by the Duke of Norfolk who, although he was a member of the Roman Catholic faith, took a personal interest in the happenings of the parish.
He was asked, for 'God's acre' and that is the area that was given.
The cost of building the walls, which amounted to £331-19s-3d, was raised by voluntary contribution, the iron gates were given by Mrs. Smith of Barnes Hall, and the evergreens and lime trees planted by the wall sides were the offerings of Mr. W. H. Strouts, a churchwarden who was later buried there.
Having seen the' muddle and confusion of the graves of the old churchyard the Vicar was determined that this should not happen in the new acre. He consulted the clerk to the Burngreave Burial Board who advised that the whole ground be mapped on a plan and every grave plot be numbered, so that the Sexton could preserve due regularity in the interments. It was ruled that no new grave was to be dug at a less depth than eight feet.
Caveat - Please Note:
Although we are aware of some burials, we cannot confirm verbatim the names in all the plots, as an example the workhouse graves.
Names that appear in the Ecclesfield Burial Books only indicate they had a service in St. Mary's Church but not always buried in the local Cemetery. Interment may have taken place in another local cemetery.
Any information obtained from the public which help us define a name to a grave number will be added to the register later.
Please contact us using this email address webmaster.st.marys.ecclesfield@gmail.com if you believe a record needs updating.
User Notes For The Burial Records
The Spreadsheet and PDF files below contain a total of 6320 Records covering the Old Burial Ground, Burial Ground South Parts 1 & 2 and Burial Ground North Parts 1 & 2
The records are sorted by SURNAME, then by PLOT NO and then by FIRST NAME to ensure all family burials are grouped together
The LINE (CELL) background colours YELLOW, WHITE, PINK or BLUE indicate the location area on the corresponding plan/s
In the AGE column suffix: Inf = Infant d = days w = weeks m = months Their age at time of death
The ABODE column indicates the domicile (if known) at time of death
INDEX the left hand (index) column has been left empty for your own reference to be added
Downloadable Burial Records
The Excel Spreadsheet is only available for download as the full version
Consolidated Burial Records
There are three PDF versions - For people who don’t have or use Excel
A to Z Consolidated Burial Records
And two abbreviated versions
Consolidated Burial Records A to I
Consolidated Burial Records J to Z
Plans of the Burial Grounds
See the outline plan below
These are available in four versions:
A PDF file showing the full plan of the areas, for those who need a portable copy
And three image files
The full plan as shown below
Burial Ground South and North – Yellow and White Sections
Old Burial Ground – Pink and Blue Sections
These last two will print out on A4 (Landscape) with easy to read plot numbers on most home printers.
For the best viewing experience we recommend that you download and save these files first, and then use Adobe PDF Reader. Some browsers use built in PDF viewers that do not support the full searching of PDF files
Copyright © 2011 - 2021 St. Mary’s Church – Ecclesfield and Others - All rights reserved
Permission to copy, transmit, and store this work, unmodified and in its entirety for your own personal use, is granted.
Please contact us if you want to use these resources on a commercial basis
St Mary's Church, Priory Road, Ecclesfield, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, S35 9XZ, United Kingdom
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