Rowntree A-Z

Quaker Burial Ground, Cromwell Road, Bishophill

This piece of land was purchased in 1667 and used as the first burial ground in York for Quakers. John Woolman (friend of Benjamin Franklin and early advocate of the abolition of slavery) is buried there, as are some of the Tukes, and Lindley Murray, the grammarian. Now a serene garden with lime trees, with terrace and flower beds, old walls, round-topped stones fixed around the edges along the walls, it belongs to some flats for the elderly, called Tuke House.

The reminders of mortality are discreetly removed to the shady walls, yet this is an important location, as one commentator has written: ‘One of the moving sights of York has gone, left with a small patch of green that is too small.’

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