Grave wreaths stolen from Lanark’s remote cemetery

The choice of the new cemetery site at Springbank - nearer Ravenstruther than Lanark itself - was controversial at the time.

Some like Lanark Greyfriars minister the Rev Bryan Kerr argued that it was simply too far out of town, making visits by relatives to the graves of loved ones an unnecessarily long journey.

There were also fears expressed about security at the graveyard, it being in what was once farmland and is still surrounded by fields with very few local residents or passers-by to spot any wrong-doing going on.

Last year the Gazette highlighted the use of the cemetery roadways by youths using scrambler bikes and even fathers and children with remote-control model cars.

Last week there was another incident even more upsetting to relatives of one of those interred there, a double theft of floral tributes from a grave, that of the late husband of Mrs Isobel Ringer of Lanark’s Russell Road.

She told the Gazette: “My husband died on may 4 last tear and his ashes are buried at Springbank.

“On Friday, February 6 I visited his grave when the two wreaths the family had laid were still there.

“One was tied to a headstone and the other to the ground, both firmly.

“ There is no way they could have just been blown away by the wind.

“On Sunday, February 8 both the wreaths had gone.

“Is nothing sacred anymore?

For more on this, pick up a copy of the Carluke and Lanark Gazette.