Lost stories of that forgotten Chorlton church …………… St Clement’s

The old St Clement’s church on the green will now have faded from the living memories of almost everyone in Chorlton.

That window, 1900

It stood on a prominent position flanked by a pub, two farmhouses and had received worshipers from early in the 16th century till its closure in 1940 and demolition nine years later.

I say faded from the collective memory, but it is just possible that there will a few who attended services there as young children and gazed up at the window with its blue and yellow glass which dominated the eastern end of the church.

My friend Marjorie was one, and she could still vividly describe the interior and spoke with sadness at how after it closed it was left to the vandals and the weather who together trashed the building.

Happily, there will be more people who remember the old parish graveyard which surrounded the church.  For centuries it was the last resting place for many local residents some of who will still have descendants living here in Chorlton.

All of which makes the church and the burial ground an interesting subject for the fourth book in the series nothing to do in chorlton, where Peter Topping and I take six locations, ask you to sit down in each spot and we will tell you the story of where you are sitting in words, photographs and Peter’s Paintings.

In the case of nothing to do in chorlton book 4, The Lych Gate and Grave Situations Beyond, we have departed slightly from the formula.

Instead the location is the graveyard, and the six chapters will include, one on the history of the church, a second on a description of its burial ground over the centuries, and then four stories of four families who were buried there.  

So that is it.

The book will be published in April with a launch and one of our popular history walks around the same time.

And to make it just that bit more everyone’s story we welcome your pictures and memories which can be sent to the link, nothing to do in chorlton” by Andrew Simpson & Peter Topping, www.pubbooks.co.uk 

As Marjorie would have known the church, 1900

Location; Chorlton Green

Picture; inside the old St Clements, 1900, from the collection of Allan Brown

*nothing to do in chorlton, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20doing%20nothing%20in%20Chorlton