View of the Cemetery in 1975. Source: Picture Sheffield.
In the 1950s the Cemetery Company was still selling burial plots in perpetuity although very few burials were taking place, with an average of 12 per year. The Cemetery Company offered to sell the General Cemetery to the City but after an examination of the accounts the Council decided it was not financially viable.
In 1963 a company bought most of the shares of the Cemetery Company intending to use the site for a housing development. This news caused a great deal of local opposition, and it rapidly became clear that the development could not go ahead. The plan was abandoned, and the site became even more derelict, dangerous and overgrown. However, by the mid 1970s it was clear that change was urgent.
Photographs of the Cemetery taken at this time give a good impression of what the site was like before the clearance and, although they provide by no means a complete picture, they illustrate how overcrowded the Anglican part of the Cemetery had become. In general, the monuments on the Anglican side were more uniform than those on the Nonconformist side and the layout had long since diverged from Robert Marnock’s romantic scheme to become that of the Burial Board style of compact spaces and straight rows.
You can read more about the history of Sheffield General Cemetery in the SGCT publications For the Living and the Dead, Sheffield General Cemetery – Then & Now, and Recollections of a Former Occupant.