A bridge too far

A bridge too far, a comedy of errors, a grave mistake, bridge over troubled water, cry me a river... so many possibilities for this week's run report title! Any why? Well, it all started with a bridge closure. One we knew about. Yet still accidentally ended up heading towards, through the park and on the wrong side of the river! Tracey, Mandy, Ashley and Naomi found the whole situation hilarious, albeit frustrating, as we could almost see the Church but just could not get to it! We were hoping to discover another way to cross the water (even considering swimming or asking the passing rowers for a lift!) but our only realistic option was to head back the way we came and start again on the right side of the river... turning a 1.4 mile run into 3.7 miles. Luckily for us, and the Church Warden David, Paul and Pete were meeting us there so could crack on with the task to make up for our late arrival. Ashley did a sprint finish for the final mile so he could also make a head start.

So onto the task... we were uncovering memorial slates in the Garden of Rest at St Matthew’s Church in Darley Abbey. Overgrowth of the surrounding bushes had left many of these slates covered up by branches, soil and weeds, so our job – in fact our privilege – was to uncover and clean them. Working in the pouring rain, it was a muddy and physical task, but with lots of moments of reflection as we thought about the people whose ashes had been laid to rest there. Young and old, with some who had lived into their 70s and 80s - incredible for the 19th Century. It really was a privilege to help reveal these markers of lives lived and lost.

We uncovered many of the slates but there’s more work to be done, so we will be heading back to St Matthew’s to continue this task in June. Please keep an eye out for future sessions and join us.

After the task, our run back to base was a less eventful but equally enjoyable, 1.4 miles.

Thanks to our wonderful volunteers for their hard work tonight. It was great to be joined by Paul on his first task, bringing with him not only his expertise as a Gardener and Gardening Tutor, but also plenty of tools to help us. Everyone worked incredibly hard and ticked both GoodGym boxes: Doing Good and Getting (very) Fit!

History of St Matthew's Church and the Garden of Rest St Matthew's Church was built in 1819 by Walter Evans the very wealthy owner of the Darley Abbey cotton mill. Quoting from an article in the Parish Magazine in 1968 by the vicar, the Rev Bill Chivers, 'They were one of the foremost Evangelical families in the county. In their village they provided a miniature 'welfare state' of their own, with free maternity benefit, medical attention, and burial, with a standardised slate memorial stone.' The Evans family really cared about the spiritual and physical welfare of the Villagers. Their patronage ended in 1929 with the death of Ada Evans. A lasting gift to the village was Darley Park which is enjoyed by so many today. The houses they built for the workers, the old school building, and the mill buildings are also a valued living heritage in Darley Abbey today. They, and the Church, are part of the 'Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site'.

In 200 years there have been 3100 burials, the early ones being marked with a slate ledger. To protect these, and to enable churchyard maintenance, the grass has been allowed to grow over the slates. In two areas, however, around the Fellowship Room, and around the Garden of Rest, the slates have been moved from their original grave positions and are very visible.

The Garden of Rest (GoR) was created at St Matthews in the early 1950s by moving 122 slate ledgers which were marking existing graves to form a path on the sides of a rectangle, with a beech hedge on the north and east sides. The Ashes are buried on top of the existing graves.The first burial of ashes in the GoR was on 4 February 1954 (two years before Markeaton Crematorium was built). I can only surmise that the GoR was established in anticipation of Markeaton Crematorium being built, and a resultant significant increase in requests for the burial of ashes without an existing family grave in which to bury them.

Over the years the two beech hedges have thickened considerably and grown over the slate paths edging the north and east sides of the GoR. By cutting back the beech hedge even further than the recent cut, GoodGym were able to clear and reveal, for the first time in many years, the line of 34 slate ledgers at the base of the north beech hedge. They date in the 1830s, those on the full 122 edging slate ledgers range from 1824 (5 years after the building of the church) until 1853. A list of those buried is on a church database and can be checked off against those revealed by GoodGym. There is a slow moving, but active, Church project to map all the slate ledgers buried under the grass areas.

John Bishop Parochial Church Council (PCC) member and unofficial archivist/historian for the Church having worshipped there since a choir boy for 67 years.