The 10th anniversary of the death of a professor who was a founder of York University was marked at a service at a Ryedale church at the weekend.

Professor Patrick Nuttgens, who was 74 and lived at Terrington, was a founder of York University and later of Leeds Polytechnic.

His wife, Bridget, known as Biddy, attended the service with family and relatives at St Leonard & St Mary's RC Church, Malton, where it was led by parish priest Father Tim Bywater.

She said: "It was so nice to be able to gather together so many relatives and friends and to share the service with others in the parish."

When he died he weas described as a champion of good architecture and intelligent conservation as well as being a writer, broadcaster and artist.

He worked with Lord James of Rusholme, the vice chancellor at York and played a key role the development of the Heslington campus.

He formed a deep attachment to the city of York itself but became Increasingly annoyed by the way in which York was being ruined, as he saw it, with new office buildings and road schemes and he resigned from the city's architects advisory committee.

Through York's Civic Trust and Georgian Society, and later as a columnist for the Yorkshire Evening Press, he became a firm opponent of what he felt was insensitive development.

It was the third time in the last two months that the church has been at the centre of 10th anniversaries - the other two marking the death in road accidents of Malton Hospital worker Joanna Rookes and student Lydia Purcell.

During that year - 2004 - the Malton church was involved in 19 funerals.