Thursday 14th May 2015

Three members of ERG (2 of whom are also members of St Mary's) and another member of the St Mary's Church History Group attended a day's workshop in the beautiful King's Manor building, home to York University's Archaeology Department. 

The event was hosted by the York Centre for Digital Heritage (Gareth Beale), the Cemetery Research Group, and Kirkyard Consulting. The title of the event was "Who's telling the stories?" and focused on the interpretation of cemeteries and graveyards to reach public audiences of local residents, visitors and tourists.

Sadly, we were the only local community group represented - the other delegates were mostly professionals working with heritage organisations or for large cemeteries. While they were dealing with large spaces used for a variety of purposes, including parks and recreation - and often have to generate income, and provide proven, audited "added value" - ERG and St Mary's can concentrate on the educational and local heritage value of our little graveyards, according to our own interests. Nevertheless, despite our objectives and perspectives being very different from everyone else's, we all found the day very interesting and picked up some very useful tips and ideas. We are now full of enthusiasm for promoting the heritage of the local graveyards of Embsay and Upper Wharfedale!

Jane Lunnon