Book tells the story of Kirkby Fleetham’s seven centuries of history
A ONE-YEAR project to uncover seven centuries of stories about people buried in a village cemetery came to fruition with the publication of a new book.
The book, titled St Mary’s Church Kirkby Fleetham, Monumental Inscriptions and Their Stories, launched earlier this month in Kirkby Fleetham Christmas Fayre.
This was the result of a year of cleaning and transcribing memorials, as well as researching the history of those memorialized in the cemetery and inside St Mary’s Church.
The book is a collaboration of Kirkby Fleetham residents Lesley Bottomley and Sheila Minto, who researched and published the stories associated with headstones and memorials, while Neil Rough supported the project by taking photographs to accompany the text.
St Mary’s is a 12th century church, and several hundred people were buried there until the middle of the 19th century, when the cemetery was closed, except for those who had existing family plots. A Chapel of the Ease (St Andrew’s Church) was built at Great Fencote in 1847 and a new cemetery was established there.
Lesley and Sheila did extensive research, including using church baptism, marriage and burial records held at the North Yorkshire County Record Office. Online sources were particularly useful for digging deeper into documents such as census records, land registers, wills, estates and news articles.
They said they enjoyed creating the book and hoped local residents, as well as people from further afield, would enjoy it. The book sold well at Christmas Fayre held in Kirkby Fleetham Village Hall. All profits will be donated to the Sainte-Marie church.
Copies of the book are sold at the Kirkby Fleetham Village Hall Hub on Wednesdays and Saturdays from 10:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. Copies can also be purchased by contacting Sheila Minto by email at [email protected], or by phone on 07775 600452 or Lesley Bottomley, by phone on 07855961563. The cost is £ 10 plus postage and postage. packaging.