A Service of Historic Significance

Last year St Wilfrid’s Church PCC developed an area of land in the south-west corner of the Churchyard to provide an outside play area for the Monk Fryston Playschool. This enabled Playschool to fulfil its statutory requirements in relation to Ofsted and also to celebrate its 40th anniversary of providing pre-school education for the children of our community with the opening of this new area sponsored by St Wilfrid’s Church and North Yorkshire County Council.

During this development a number of human remains were uncovered, and it was strongly recommended by the Diocesan authorities in York that these remains be examined prior to them being re-interred in the grounds of the Church. During the course of the year we have been extremely fortunate to secure the services of Dr Janet McNaught, a paleo-pathologist, to undertake this work for us.

Dr McNaught’s full report is now filed with St Wilfrid’s Church and on Sunday 4th September 2011 the bones were re-interred in St Wilfrid’s Church Grounds. A short service was taken in accordance with the Book of Common Prayer Burial Rite (a rite that would have been used for the initial burials of some of those whose remains we were re-interring), and that service was read from a Book of Common Prayer that was given to St Wilfrid’s Church by the Revd Benjamin Hemsworth in the late 19th century.

After the service and the re-interment light refreshments were served, and this was followed by a comprehensive talk given by Dr McNaught about her findings from the investigation she undertook. It was interesting to discover the sheer amount of information she was able to provide from her analysis of the bones – some of which went back to Anglo-Saxon times. The key thing in her talk, however, was the importance of remembering the people who were part of this community all those years ago and acknowledging the important role they played in bequeathing to us the villages of Monk Fryston, Hillam and Burton Salmon that we have today.

It was an extremely informative and enlightening afternoon which was thoroughly enjoyed by all who were present.