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The General Cemetery is a Cemetery in the City Of Sheffield , England that opened in 1836, and closed for burial in 19781. It was the principle cemetery in Victorian Sheffield with over 87,000 burials. Today it is a Conservation Area (one of only six in South Yorkshire ), and it is listed on the English Heritage National Register Of Historic Parks And Gardens .


LOCATION

The cemetery is located to the south-west of central Sheffield. It is in the district called Sharrow , on a north-facing hillside between Sharrow Vale and Sharrow Head. The Porter Brook runs along its north-western edge, the south-eastern boundary is Cemetery Road.


HISTORY


The General Cemetery was one of the first commercial cemeteries in , who also designed Sheffield Botanical Gardens (1836) and Weston Park (1873). The first burial was of Mary Ann Fish, a victim of Tuberculosis . An Anglican cemetery was consecrated alongside the Nonconformist cemetery in 1846—the wall that divided the un-consecrated and consecrated ground can still be seen today. By 1916 the cemetery was rapidly filling up and running out of space, burials in family plots continued through the 1950s and 1960s, but by 1978 ownership of the cemetery had passed to Sheffield City Council and it was closed to all new burials. In 1980 the council got permission by Act Of Parliament to clear 800 gravestones to make a recreation area. Through the 1980s and 1990s most of the rest of the cemetery was left untouched, becoming overgrown and an important sanctuary for local wildlife. Unfortunately, many of the buildings also fell into disrepair. In early 2003 work began to restore the gatehouse and catacombs funded by a £500,000 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund 2.


NOTABLE BUILDINGS AND STRUCTURES

  • The Gatehouse ('' (accessed 11 February 2006 ).) is built directly over the Porter Brook in classical architecture with egyptian features. The gateway ressembles a Roman arch. It was possibly built ofthe river so that entering the cemetery was symbollic of the crossing of the river Styx in Greek Mythology .

  • The Egyptian Gate (Grade II--- listed'' (accessed 11 February 2006 ).) is the entrance to the cemetery on Cemetery Road. It is richly ornamented and possesses a sculpted gate bearing to coiled snakes holding their tails in their mouths.

  • The Nonconformist chapel (Grade II--- listed'' (accessed 11 February 2006 ).) is built in classical style with egyptian features. The Sculpted panel above the door shows a dove, this represents the Holy Ghost or the Holy Spirit. Stone steps lead down to a wall with catacomb-like entrances.

  • The Anglican chapel (added in 1850; Grade II listed'' (accessed 11 February 2006 ).). Designed in the Gothic style by William Flockton . Unlike the other buildings in the cemetery, the chapel was built in Gothic style rather than classical or egyptian. The building is distinctive in style due to its pointy windows, the porte-cochere and the spire. The spire is indeed far too big for the rest of the building, but was built so that it would be soon from afar.

  • The Registrar's house (Grade II listed'' (accessed 11 February 2006 ).)

  • The Catacombs. There are two rows of Catacombs built into the hillside, this method of burial was unpopular and ten bodies only were laid to rest in the catacombs in the first 10 years.

  • The Dissenters' Wall was built between 1848 and 1850. It divided the older Nonconformist part of the cemetery from the consecrated Anglican ground. The wall runs, almost uninterrupted, from the perimeter wall on Cemetery Road to the path beside the Porter Brook at the bottom of the cemetery.



NOTABLE BURIALS



REFERENCES



EXTERNAL LINK