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A 'churchyard' is a patch of land adjoining or surrounding a church which is usually owned by the relevant church or local parish itself. In the Scots language or Northern English language this can also be known as a '''kirkyard''' or '''kirkyaird'''.
A churchyard should not be confused with a 'graveyard' or a 'cemetery'. While churchyards were historically often used as graveyards, they can also be any patch of land on church grounds, even 'without' a place of burial.

Contents

Use of churchyards as a place of burial

Churchyards today

See also

References

Use of churchyards as a place of burial

Historically the most common use of churchyards were as a consecrated burial ground known as a graveyard. Graveyards were usually established at the same time as the building of the relevant place of worship (which can date back to the 8th to 14th centuries) and were often used by those families who could not afford to be buried inside or beneath the place of worship itself.
The use of churchyards as burial grounds for the deceased was discontinued all over Europe in various stages between the 18th to 19th centuries due to lack of space for new headstones and dead bodies. In many European states, burial in churchyards was outlawed altogether either by royal decree's or government legislation for public hygiene reasons.

Churchyards today

Churchyards can be host to unique and ancient habitats due to the fact that they may remain significantly unchanged for hundreds of years.^[1]
However, many churches, most notably in the United Kingdom, have sold their churchyard's in part or in whole. Also in many cases in the late 19th and 20th centuries, churches were forced to sell large portions of their churchyard in order for a road to be built or expanded. The loss of part (or all) of the churchyard, often lead also to the removal and permamnent loss of century old graves and headstones. In some cases the human remains were exhumed and the gravestones transferred.
In other cases, the churches themselves removed all the headstones in the graveyards, to recreate a park-like environment on the churchyard or simply to facilitate the seasonal cutting and removal of grass or weeds.
A very small number of churchyards across the world are still used as graveyards today.

See also

★ Graveyard

★ Cemetery

★ Headstone

★ Corpse road

References

1. ''How natural is a nature reserve? An ideological study of British nature conservation
landscapes'', Cooper NS, Biodiversity and Conservation, 9, 2000, 1131-1152