Heritage: Sheffield General Cemetery undergoing huge amount of restoration work thanks to £3million grant

The work, which is due to finish soon, is repairing structures in the Cemetery that were unsafe and improving the paths, ensuring easy access for all.

There is also going to be low level lighting, helping people find their way to events.

There are more than 40 active volunteers at the Cemetery. Some look after the landscape which is a lovely nature reserve with lots of native plants, birds and other wildlife.

We have a research team who answer questions from members of the public, wanting information about a relative perhaps who is one of the 87,000 burials we have.

We also produce books. Recently a volunteer produced a book about the people whose last address before burial was a workhouse.

There is another new book about the metal workers buried here.

We are about to publish a book about the many confectioners in the Cemetery and to accompany this there will be an exhibition in the Weston Park Museum. We rely heavily on our volunteers for landscape and research but we are a charity, governed by a board of Trustees.

We would very much like to increase their number, particularly we are looking for people with a special interest in historic landscapes or in finance.

Please do get in touch if you would like to take an active part in the running of the Cemetery.

We are a charity and our income comes from our events, the sale of books and successful funding applications.

We have been lucky enough to be chosen by the Co op community fund as one of their charities for the year.

In order to benefit from this, we need our supporters to join the Co-op and choose us as their charity. Then we get a little cash whenever you spend money at the co-op.

We have good links with the universities and local schools. We run history tours every month and feel that we can tell the whole story of Sheffield on our walks.

We have men and women who died during the first world war and during the blitz in 1940.

We have people who died of the diseases prevalent in the overcrowded housing and poor sanitation of Victorian Sheffield.

There are many child burials, and sad memorials erected by families who lost several children. There are over 40 people who died in the Sheffield Flood of 1864, many of whom could not be identified.We look forward to welcoming lots of people when our 'glow up' is completed.

If you are interested, do look at our website, [email protected] and come and visit.

We are open all year round and the park area is a lovely spot for a picnic or a game of football. When Spring finally arrives it is a lovely place to hear birdsong and see the new growth on the trees. There might even be tadpole in our pond!