Heritage Heroes: Inside the Leeds cemetery full of secrets and meet the woman who reveals them

At Lawnswood Cemetery in Adel, Ann Lightman is doing what she’s become known for over the past two decades: showing people the stories behind one of Leeds’ most significant historic sites.

The historic grounds, with their grand Victorian chapels and sweeping avenues, weren’t part of Ann’s life plan. They weren’t even on her radar. But in 2008, a simple request changed everything.

“I didn’t know anything at all about Lawnswood Cemetery,” she admits with a laugh.

“A friend of mine, Kate Vernon, took photographs around it so she knew it pretty well.

“So she, I and another lady took three Leeds University students around, and they did a project.

“And Kate and I thought, oh, what do we do with this? So we decided to do a tour of Lawnswood Cemetery based on the information they unearthed.”

It was the seed from which the Friends of Lawnswood Cemetery grew.

Today, Ann continues to lead tours and deliver talks at Lawnswood, regularly attracting larger audiences than anticipated.

She said: “For Heritage Open Days I offer one walk and I invariably do two. I think we put 15 as the cut-off and I had about 23 on the first and 20 on the second.”

But her involvement began at a time when Lawnswood itself was struggling.

“It was looking rather sad,” Ann recalls.

“The gates had gone from the main entrance and they’d been replaced by a sort of builder’s netting gate. It looked sad.”

A turning point came when the old columbarium appeared on a Buildings at Risk register, prompting Ann to speak at a Civic Trust meeting.

She said: “I must have said, it really seems to need some friends. That off-hand comment was published in a local magazine, and within months, “the Friends got set up.”

Since then, the transformation has been slow but steady. Lawnswood is now recognised by Historic England as a park and garden of special historic interest, and the Friends’ monthly work parties - “about 15 or 20 turn up” - quietly keep the cemetery’s gardens in shape.

Ann said: “They do gardening and maintenance tasks.Trimming back shrubs, clearing graves, replanting beds, cleaning leaves… it helps with the maintenance of the place an awful lot.”

If Lawnswood’s paths are tidier these days, its stories shine brighter too - thanks to Ann’s talent for bringing history to life.

She said: “People say we don’t have many statues, and I’m thinking: yes, but everybody’s got a headstone.

“You need interpretation, because the headstones often don’t say what these people did.”

Her walks are part architecture tour, part social history, part celebration of the Leeds that built the modern world. The engineering trail takes in innovators whose work powered the city; the textiles walk explores the industry that shaped Leeds’ identity.

She said: “Textiles was probably the founding industry in Leeds. On the back of that came engineering and chemicals.”

Among Lawnswood’s extraordinary residents, Ann’s favourites are a wonderfully eclectic mix: Joseph Hepworth, 19th-century clothing magnate and ancestor of today’s Next; the owner of Whitworth Colliery who funded the University of Leeds’ original Institute of Mining; and Obadiah Nessi, a textile manufacturer and Leeds mayor who persuaded the Clothworkers to invest in the fledgling university.

Then there’s Victor Hugo Watson of Waddingtons, who introduced Monopoly to Britain.

“They’re not just local heroes. They were national names in their time,” said Ann.

But perhaps the most remarkable of all lies in the 1910 extension: Lord Moynihan, the pioneering surgeon who modernised British operating theatres.

Ann said: “He’s the only one, as far as I’m aware, that was offered to have a funeral at Westminster Abbey, and his family declined it.

“Moynihan introduced rubber gloves, masks and washable gowns - today mundane, then revolutionary.

Ann’s research has even uncovered touches of royal history.

“Olive Lupton married Noel Middleton… that’s Kate Middleton’s great-grandmother,” she said.

“I’ve now got a talk on the Princess of Wales and her Leeds and textile heritage.”

It’s proven particularly popular with groups who “don’t always want to know about cemeteries, but they’re quite interested in the Princess of Wales.”

One of the cemetery’s surprises is its nationally admired statuary - especially its angels.

Ann said: “We’ve got some wonderful, wonderful statuary.”

A photographer from Durham once stopped her among the headstones.

“He used to go to Highgate in London to photograph angels. Then he discovered Lawnswood and was delighted,” she said.

Despite what some might assume, the cemetery is far from morbid. Ann finds it uplifting - and so do her increasingly loyal followers.

“Quite a few of these are repeats. They’ve come on more than one walk,” she said.

Above all, she wants people to experience Lawnswood for themselves.

The Friends are continuing to develop Lawnswood’s self-guided trails, including Ann’s personal project.

She said: “My project is to actually get them a walks leaflet. A nature one next.”

Whether guiding groups of 20, researching new stories or helping shape the next chapter of the cemetery’s care, Ann is the definition of a ‘Heritage Hero’.

“It is an outdoor museum of the history of Leeds,” she said.

The Yorkshire Evening Post teaming up with partners across the city -led by Leeds-based heritage consultancy Wafer Hadley - to help shape and develop a new heritage framework for Leeds.

And today we’re launching a special series of reports shining the spotlight on our city’s very own Heritage Heroes. We’re showcasing those people in the heart of our communities across the city who preserves, champions and inspires others to ensure each place’s story continues to be known, understood and cherished.

To nominate a group or individual to feature in this series email [email protected] to feature.

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