Sutton and Huby Gardening Club, February 2020

We held our first ever meeting in the village hall at Huby, which has been beautifully restored, for our latest talk. After many years the club had outgrown the Huby Chapel. The club is most grateful to the chapel supporters for their help over the decades and to the village hall committee for their kind welcome.

We were lucky to get Clive Dawson tell us about the restoration of York Cemetery into “an oasis in the city”. The York Cemetery company, set up in 1837, ran this private cemetery after laying it out with elaborate borders and extensive tree planting as a public park, the first in York. After the graveyards inside the walls were closed in 1854 the company was able to be generous towards its shareholders. As it became almost full and the York Crematorium became more popular, the income fell, and the company ended upgoing bankrupt in 1966. A “Bereaved Relatives Group” anxious to keep access to the graves took over and a gardener took over to dig and tend the graves for the group….