Saturday 6 October 2018

Future blog hosting change

Due to difficulties with Blogger being tied to my ISP email, I will be shortly migrating all blog content to a cloud hosted Wordpress site - home.zakrabbitblogs.tk

This is still under development, but as the Wargraves survey is all but complete (one location left to add that I was not previously aware of) and therefore static, I will transfer this first.

This page will remain accessible as an archive, but will no longer be updated.

Thursday 1 December 2016

Selby District War Grave Survey Complete

My survey of war graves within the Selby District is now complete.

Carrying out this survey has led me to locations throughout the district that I would not normally have visited, where I have seen the range of church architecture from medieval to modern, and located extant war graves from the earliest days of the First World War, through WW2 and post-Imperial and Cold War conflicts, to modern day and current conflicts.

It has been an interesting, thought provoking and, at times, sobering process.

I hope that this blog will provide a useful resource to others undertaking similar research, and that some may find it complementary to other, and official, sources.

If any reader can provide any clarity of detail on any of the graves, especially those of post-WW2/Cold War/post-Imperial conflicts, or those that may be due to non-hostilities accidents, please feel free to post comments.


With the main survey complete, there will be few new updates from now on. These will occur for sites just outside of the Selby districts, if I happen to be passing them.

All Saints, Wistow

All Saints church Wistow is currently undergoing roof renovations. An appeal total board stood in the churchyard shows that this was raised by local fundraising,


There is one extant war grave,

Sqn Ldr Gristwood, Ian Anthony,
Royal Air Force,
13th January 1989  Age 40

From what I can gather researching the above on the internet, this may have been an air accident. Although I cannot tie the name, the date matches that of an aerial collision between and RAF Tornado and a GAF Alphajet during an exercise in Germany. However, another source suggests the involvement of RAF Masirah, Oman.

All Saints, Cawood and Cawood Cemetery

The church of All Saints, Cawood is small and located on a small plot beside the river. There are no war graves within the churchyard,



The cemetery is located on the other side of the village, and contains one war grave,

13075767 Pte Gray, G.,
Pioneer Corps,
31st July 1947  Age 40

On note is one grave, that of Mary Quenby, died in 2009 age 82, which shows from the inscribed capbadge that she was a member of the Womens Land Army.

St Mary, Riccall


No war graves present, but two ex- forces interments were noted, Major W.H. Jenkins, REME, and Sidney Dudley, RAF, died 2015 age 93.


St Helens, Stillingfleet and Cemetery

Only one war grave is present within the churchyard,

22157 Pte Richardson, J.,
Northumberland Fusiliers,
27th March 1918  Age 37




The church is rather well hidden by large mature evergreen trees.

There are a further two war graves in the nearby cemetery,

541767 Pte Harrison, A.,
Labour Corps,
14th November 1918  Age 25

4542598 Gnr Simpson, G.,
Royal Artillery,
29th May 1943  Age 24

St Helens, Escrick

Only one war grave, but two ex- forces interments, A Major Dawson, A., and an Alan Ronald (Ron) Witty DFC,


The one war grave is, sadly, another of modern conflict,

25087205 Pte Mason, Shaun Daniel,
The Green Howards,
21st February 2004  Age 22