The picture above shows the surviving pedestrian access to the Castle Street disused burial site (s.p.b.s) looking across from the side of Railway Dock, this now moorings for pleasure craft. By the late 19th century the area of grass shown in the picture was a timber storage area on the dock-side, there are a couple of minutes (s.p.b.s) showing that occasionally the piles of timber slumped and damaged the disused burial ground’s perimeter wall.
By 1891/2 there is direct evidence in the Committee Minutes of formal collaboration between the Burials and Parks Committees to make disused burial grounds ‘become a little green, pleasant and even pretty retreat’.
Each year in the early 20th century the councillor members of the Parks and Burials Committee (now combined) visited and inspected the cemeteries, parks and disused burial grounds under their supervision. The minutes show that they generally found them to be in good condition especially the flower beds.
In 1912 a gauge to collect rain water (allowing records of precipitation to be kept), soot and other atmospheric deposits was fixed into the grass at Castle Street disused burial ground.
Direct references to the Castle Street site decline between the Wars but one from 1934 shows that the site was still then administered as a place of resort as it was to be open to the public on Sundays for six hours between May and September, the on-site attendant to be paid for a full eight-and-a-half hour shift.
For decades the City Mortuary was located in the north-east corner of the Castle Street site, this confirmed by map evidence from late-18th/early-19th century century town plans and late-19th/early-20th century detailed O.S. maps (all at the Hull History Centre). Previously, in the late 18th century the ‘goal’ had been there located. In 1954 a new City Mortuary was built in ‘an existing cemetery’ and in 1960 it was minuted that the medical officer of health had no further use for the ex-City Mortuary, Castle Street and the Parks Committee could now use the building. The building no longer exists and the site, beside a very busy road, is a green oasis with the mature trees planted in the 1890s, but is ill-kempt.