From grave robbers to a complete revamp - the Sunderland churchyard given a new look 64 years ago today

It was on June 30, 1960, that the five acre Sunderland Parish Churchyard was in the Echo headlines.

It had been cleared, levelled and planted with flowers, shrubs, and trees by the Corporation Parks Department.

Renamed after a Wearside hero

It gave a new twist to a story which had been shrouded in grim history - not least because the grave robbers Burke and Hare had once frequented the same spot.

It had been renamed the Gray Memorial Gardens after the Rev Robert Gray, who was Rector of Sunderland during the early 19th Century.

A grand ceremony for the re-opening

He was heralded as a hero on Wearside for his tireless care given to the victims of cholera.

He tended to the sick and needy during a cholera outbreak in 1831.

Tragically, when he showed the same compassion and concern for his parishioners during a typhus epidemic in 1838, he ended up dying from the disease.

In June 1960, the new-look gardens were officially opened by the Chairman of the Parks Committee Alderman W Harvey.