A Walk through Beckett Street Cemetery. The Second Oldest Municipal Graveyard. Harehills. Leeds.

Beckett Street Cemetery (formerly Burmantoffs Cemetery) is the Second oldest public funded graveyard in the UK, and the oldest in Leeds.
Burials began in 1845, and the grave now has 24'000 headstones, and 180'000 burials, a great number of these being in 'guinea graves', where poor people from the workhouse were placed in mass graves but at least got a name in a headstone.
The graveyard is also separated into Anglican and Dissident burials. At one point, plans were made to demolish the cemetery entirely but now it is kept and looked after be a dedicated team.
There is even a gravestone for a sergeant major who took part in the 'Charge of the Light Brigade'.
An interesting and historic location.

[@leeelliott175]

I go for a walk every now and again in the cemetery,it's a lovely place to walk, plenty of wildlife etc,cool video mate 👏🇬🇧🙂

[@matparks08]

It's a great location. Thanks for the comment 🙂

[@cluds136]

Thanks for that. 32 of my ancestors are buried in Beckett Street, I,opened in1857 including at least two in Guinea Graves. You would also find lots of interesting graves in Holbeck Cemetery

[@matparks08]

Thanks for watching. Very Interesting. Have you found any of your ancestors graves here? I'll check out the other Cemetery. I do have another on my list for Leeds too 😊

[@sammystockdale]

I'm pretty sure my great great grandfather Thomas Dobson is in one of those Guinne graves died 1920 😢

[@matparks08]

That's certainly a year the graves come from, so it's possible. If you ever visited them, you'd see they all run in date order, so might be easy to find. Best wishes

[@MrFlexilexi12]

Fred Smith plot no 25961. John Grimshaw (Wilkinson) plot no 26307.

[@matparks08]

Are these relations of yours?

[@MrFlexilexi12]

@@matparks08 No, I'm just also very interested in the cemetery as I have relatives there so I just researched these graves. Hopefully those numbers will help.

[@leeelliott175]

Hi mate hope you are well, can you please help me out with this, what was on the land where Shakespeare Academy now sits, on beckett Street there seems to be like posts for gates (very old) I thought that maybe it went to a large house where Shakespeare Academy now is, any help would be much appreciated

[@matparks08]

Hiya. Not sure, I'll try and find out. If I do, I'll let you know ASAP 🤔🙂

[@leeelliott175]

@@matparks08 sorry for the late response but thank you so much, I'd appreciate any information you discover