Scartho Road Cemetery is the principal burial ground for the town of Grimsby in Lincolnshire. Opened for burials in 1889 and located on Scartho Road in the town, the cemetery is managed by North East Lincolnshire Council. [1]
Scartho Road Cemetery is the principal burial ground for the town of Grimsby in Lincolnshire. Opened for burials in 1889 and located on Scartho Road in the town, the cemetery is managed by North East Lincolnshire Council. [1]
Originally known as Grimsby Municipal Cemetery, the first burial in the cemetery was that of William Calvert, a retired pork butcher of Grimsby, who died of dropsy and was buried in Scartho Road Cemetery on the 31st October 1889.
Construction of the various cemetery structures began in late 1888 and are all Grade II listed buildings. The Scartho Chapel buildings form a group with the Gatekeeper's Lodge, the former Cemetery Waiting Rooms and toilet block and the inner gateway. The Chapels are in the Gothic revival style and were designed by architect Ernest William Farebrother for the Grimsby Corporation Cemetery Committee. All the cemetery buildings were constructed by local firm J. Thompson Builders of Grimsby and were erected in red brick in an English bond with limestone dressings. The roofs to all the buildings are in distinctive Westmoreland green slate. The listed cemetery gates were restored in 2019. [2]
The Grade II listed former Cemetery Lodge is now a private residence. [3] The memorial to Sir Henry Bennett (1827-1895) is a Grade II listed structure. [4]
The cemetery holds 291 Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) burials from the First World War with the relevant Cross of Sacrifice. [5] These graves are mainly of seamen who died while serving with the Auxiliary Patrol which operated out of Grimsby. In addition, there are a further 261 CWGC graves from World War II, about 200 of which form a war graves plot behind a memorial stone dedicated to their memory. A large number of these are of personnel from the Royal Navy and the Merchant Navy and pilots and other servicemen and women of the Royal Air Force. [6] With these are a further 17 war burials of various other nationalities including German prisoners of war from the camp at nearby Weelsby. [7]
Buried together in a grave with its distinctive Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) headstone are two sisters, casualties of World War I. These are Harriet Hawkesworth Drewry (1894-1918), a Telephonist serving with the Women's Royal Naval Service [8] and her younger sister Dorothy Marjorie Drewry (1901-1920), of the same rank and service as her sister. Both are commemorated with a plaque beneath a Stations of the Cross designed by Sir Charles Arcbibald Nicholson and located in the church of St Augustine of Hippo in Grimsby. [9]
