Undercliffe Cemetery Centennial Plaque - Bradford, UK
Posted by: dtrebilc
N 53° 48.220 W 001° 44.315
30U E 583072 N 5962416
This plaque was laid to commemorate regeneration work carried out by the Rotary Club of Idle and Greengates partly for the Rotary Club's Centennial celebrations.
Waymark Code: WMJZCN
Location: Yorkshire, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 01/21/2014
Views: 1
Until the Industrial Revolution burials in the UK had to be carried out in church grave yards. When cities began to grow in size rapidly their populations outgrew the capacity of these grave yards. The solution was to change the law to allow the creation of new cemeteries that could be run by councils or private companies.
This cemetery was opened in 1854 by the Bradford Cemetery Company and has approximately 23,000 marked graves. However the trend for people to be cremated rather than buried resulted in a reduction of income and the company went into liquidation in 1977. This resulted in the cemetery going into decline with most of the graves overgrown.
Eventually a charity was formed to help run and maintain the cemetery which still carries out a limited number of burials.
Various local people and organisations help the charity to maintain the cemetery including the Idle and Greengates Rotary club which planted trees and spring bulbs in this area of the cemetery.
The plaque is a small black marble rectangle laid on a plain stone that lies on the ground. It is located at the junction of 4 grass paths in an area of the cemtery of some large grave monuments. The text is as follows.
IN RECOGNITION OF RECLAMATION WORK BY
THE ROTARY CLUB OF IDLE & GREENGATES
TREES AND SPRING BULBS WERE PLANTED
IN THIS AREA OF UNDERCLIFFE CEMETERY
YEW TREES WERE ADDED IN JULY 2005
AS PART OF THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATIONS OF ROTARY