The Denaby Cemetery Gates

January 1965

South Yorkshire Times          January 2nd 1965

Pecks

Those gates

Our Denaby Correspondent has received a letter from Mr. Arthur N. Robinson, a reader of the “South Yorkshire Times” from Edenthorpe, Doncaster, who states: “Your Denaby Correspondent in the issue of December 4th referred to the gates which used to be at the top of Tickhill Street where the street joins Tickhill Square. The reason for the gates was to enclose the cricket field which in those days was more or less open ground and was not enclosed by the high walls it has now. The gates were closed to traffic during cricket matches. Residents of Tickhill Square had free passes but other people had to pay to enter that part of the village when matches were in progress. I think it was the late Mr. Tom Dabbs and the late Mr. Witty Milner who sat at the gates to accept the entrance fees for the club.

To cemetery

The cemetery is at the back of the cricket ground and only a funeral cortege or other essential traffic was allowed through the gates. The field itself in those days was enclosed only by a fence of old winding ropes from the colliery, and stout posts. The gates were removed when the present brick wall was erected, thus ensuring that only paying customers were allowed in the grounds. The gates were later cut down to size and then placed at the ‘goods entrance’ of the Doncaster Road Co-operative Society when the late Mr. W.H. Chambers of the Colliery Company was the President of the Society. I helped in this conversion hence my knowledge of it. The Derby Day you mentioned in the article was a yearly occasion when Mr. G.S. Marples, a prominent Sheffield cutlery manufacturer, brought a Derbyshire County team of cricketers for a two day fixture. It was a custom for the Denaby Captain to invite some of the best local players from the Mexborough League and I think that one of your own (the late Mr. W.P. Turner) was invited on several occasions to play with the Denaby side in the Derby festivals.

Other gate

With reference to the other gate at the Church House (No. 1 Tickhill Square) this was a different matter altogether and it was always kept closed and opened only to allow the passing of funerals from the Church to the cemetery. This gate was on the boundary of two estates, the Fullerton and the Montagu. This boundary followed the line easterly from the Church House behind Tickhill Street (even number side), through the playground of the Rossington Street Schools and the passage at the side of the Ambulance Club and Melton Street and was at that time not only the boundary between the two estates but also the parish boundary between Old Denaby and Conisbrough and also the boundary between the then Parliamentary Division of Rotherham and Doncaster.

The key

When developed, the extension to Wadworth Street and Tickhill Square did not meet, and I understood at the time that one or other of the estates insisted that right of way be denied across the boundary, hence the gates near the Church House, the key for which was in the custody of the then Verger and his wife, the late Mr. and Mrs. Josiah Wall. The gate was removed when the present entrance to the Miners’ Welfare Institute was made, and a slight double curve at the junction of the two roads is all that now remains of the old argument. Much more could be said and expanded on the interesting subject your correspondent brought up in his notes with regard to the well known cricketers of those Derby Days and as your correspondent states: “the social aspect of the annual festival was always well to the fore”.