Another lesson in being more historical ……… and that graveyard mystery

I wish I had dated my old pictures more accurately.  

I took a lot in the late 1970s and early 80s and while I carefully saved the negatives, I was a tad careless in recording where and when they were taken.

They were all “smelly photography” by which I mean I developed the film and then by the magic of an enlarger and a tray of chemicals transformed the negatives into prints.

Which brings me to this much-loved image of the lych gate in the snow.

I posted it recently in the run up to Christmas, and causally added the date 1979.

But now I am not so sure, because the graveyard is pretty empty of the gravestones which were packed together and recorded over 300 burials from the mid-18th century.

Those memorials were still there in 1978 but clearly had vanished when I photographed the scene.

They were “lost” during the landscaping exercise which I have always placed in the early 1980s, and as if to confirm my thinking I came across another of my images dated 1980 showing the place before its renovation.

All of which is good because it means I can re-date my snow image but still raises questions of just when the landscaping happened, which in the absence of a date means a trawl of the local newspapers and an interrogation of old weather reports for snow in Chorlton.

For now I changed the date from 1979 to 1984, but that is only a guess.

Of course, someone might remember.

We shall see.

Location, Chorlton

Pictures; the lych gate, 1980 and at some other time from the collection of Andrew Simpson