Hundreds of memorials are restored

THE restoration of more than 200 memorials in a churchyard is nearing completion following safety concerns after a six-year-old boy was killed when a gravestone fell on him.

Harrogate Borough Council had 6,000 potentially unsafe memorials placed on the ground after Reuben Powell died when a 100-year-old gravestone fell on him in Grove Road Cemetery in July 2000.

Work has been carried out on another cemetery and a churchyard in Pateley Bridge to restore more than 230 memorials as part of an ongoing programme. Some of the memorials in St Mary’s Churchyard are more than 300 years old.

Harrogate Borough Council has worked with the Probation Service to restore 140 memorials where the owners could not be traced.The remainder have been restored with funding from the Friends of Pateley Bridge Cemetery and St Mary’s Churchyard.