Losing our past ……….

It is easy to be complacent about Chorlton’s past and I suppose there will be some who don’t care.

In happier times, 2010

But once we have lost it, it can’t be easily recovered.

Which brings me to our old village graveyard which stands south of the green and was the burial place for generations of Chorlton people.

Uncovering the inscription, 2023

There are 362 recorded gravestones of which only a handful still exist, and these are beginning to deteriorate.

After hundreds of years it was closed in 1886 to all but a few, and with the demolition of the parish church in 1949 the graveyard became a neglected and half forgotten place, which nature and the odd gang of vandals did nothing to improve.

And so the project to landscape it and create a quiet space full of grass, bushes and trees where you could sit, contemplate the few remaining headstones seemed a good idea and has proved to be an asset.

But the decision to remove most of the gravestones deprived us of a chunk of our history while the practice of putting some of the stones down to form a pathway will do for the rest.

although to be fair the parish authorities had already laid a significant number down by the 1920s to act as a path.

Already some are showing signs of wear while others are suffering from flakes of stone falling away.

Added to which the slow build up of vegetation is beginning to obscure some of the inscriptions.  

And while this layer does ironically act as a form of protection it serves also to hide the names and the precious messages of loss from sight.

Mr. Ree's toppling monument, 2023

Not that I am apportioning blame.  Back in the 1980s the landscaping did seem an attractive alternative to the crowded and unattended graves.  Moreover the practice of laying tombstones to act as a path is not unusual, and is used by some local churches.

At which point someone will shout that the Council who is responsible for the plot should do something, but I am well aware of the financial constraints on local authorities, particularly at this time of post Covid, the cost of living crisis and a parsimonious Government.

I fully accept that the finite sum of cash has to go a long way and it would be difficult to argue that council revenue should go to the monuments of the dead when so many of the living need all sorts of help.

But I fear that if we do nothing we will lose much that makes the place so valued by local residents.

Already one monument is beginning to list, some of the flagged steps at the rear are also very uneven, and as if to add to the decline, on my last visit one dog walker had deposited a pink bag of excrement by the lych gate.

Back in 2010 when I recorded all of the gravestones most were still in very good condition and apart from the odd cigarette butt and discarded piece of chewing gum were clear and the inscriptions easy to read.

One dog walker's contribution to the quality of the place, 2023

But not so now, which has led Peter Topping and I to talk to Cllr Mathew Bentham about a way forward for the graveyard.  

We thought that the establishment of a "Friends" group might be a first step.  

Mathew has proved very helpful, and to date we have had two meetings convened by him with officials from Neighbourhood Services, and together we are exploring possible funding as well as a model constitution along with examples of how other Friends groups work.

It is early days, and there is a long way to go.

Peter and I were out at the graveyard on Friday assessing the extent of the deterioration of some of the gravestones and did a bit of TLC.

The headstone of Rev Booth slowly disappearing, 2023

Now there will be someone who points out that February is not a good time to view the gravestones, compared with a bright summer's day.

But the accumulation of dead leaves which settle into the encroaching soil will not go away with the appearance of  Sammy sunshine.

And so we decided that as a way of highlighting the importance of the place to the community we would devote our next book in the series nothing to do in chorlton to the history of the old church, and the surrounding graves, four of which we would feature, telling the stories of the four and their unique contribution to Chorlton-cum-Hardy.

Location; the old parish churchyard, Chorlton

Pictures, the graveyard in happier times, 2010 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and the same place on Friday, February 28th 2023, courtesy of Peter Topping