Looking into the old parish churchyard in 1976

Now sometime or other most of us have ended up taking one of those pictures of the old parish churchyard through the entrance of the lych gate.

I know I have, but what marks this one out as a tad different is the scene beyond the entrance.

We are back with one of Lois’s pictures taken in 1976 long before the area was landscaped and all those monuments to past Chorlton residents were swept away.

I still think the decision was wrong because while I enjoy sitting in the churchyard with its mix of grass trees and bushed, I yearn for those old gravestones.

A few have been retained but most have long since gone to be hard core and with them has gone the history of the township.

Here were the stories of families which lived, worked and played around the green and in the hamlets and farmhouses across Chorlton.

Many are families I came to know when writing the book and it saddens me that their epitaphs are no longer here to see.

Now I know that the church yard had become neglected, and many of the gravestones were in need of tender care but their going is a loss.

That said something of what has been lost can be seen again in earlier blogs of Chorlton in the 1970s.

Picture; looking into the churchyard in 1976 from the location of Lois Elsden


*THE STORY OF CHORLTON-CUM-HARDY, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/the-story-of-chorlton-cum-hardy.html

**Chorlton in the 1970s, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Chorlton%20in%20the%201970s