High Royds Memorial Garden and Chapel open day will be held on Saturday, between 10am and 1pm, to celebrate the completion of phases one and two of the redevelopment of the former derelict paupers’ graveyard on Buckle Lane, Menston.

Tea, coffee and biscuits will be available and free car parking is available at the Hare & Hounds.

In 2010 the trustees, of what is now the Friends of High Royds Memorial Garden, took over the ownership and responsibility, on behalf of the local community, for the three acres of graveyard, chapel and surrounding woodland belonging to the former High Royds psychiatric hospital.

With the help of volunteers and Heritage Lottery funding the derelict graveyard has been transformed into a memorial chapel and garden which has been highly commended by Yorkshire in Bloom Judges.

Phase one was completed in 2011 and the chapel re-building renovation was completed in September 2012. Since then the chapel has been fully fitted out with furniture and brasswork donated by churches in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire.

Volunteers have also worked on the gardens with funding and advice from North of England Royal Horticultural Society, based in Harrogate.

Social historian, photographer and author Mark Davis, who has carried out extensive research into the High Royds Psychiatric Hospital, and other West Riding asylums, will be present for a signing of his new book West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum Through Time. There will also be a film giving further details of High Royds in the latter part of 19th and the whole of the 20th century.