A heap of history …… and an exciting new project .... today

 It is easy to slide over Chorlton’s past.

The graveyard, 2023

Buildings disappear, people’s memories fade, and newcomers will have no reason to think that close to where they live is a treasure trove of stories about our shared past.

So that landscaped area between the village green and the Bowling Green pub is more than a collection of bushes and trees with the odd ancient gravestone.

Mary Crowther's gravestone, 2023

The clues for the curious are of course those gravestones, that marks the place out as the old parish graveyard, and with a little careful observation the casual visitor will find the outline of the old church, which dates to 1799 and was built on a wattle and daub chapel constructed sometime in the early 16th century.

Today there are only a handful of the 362 gravestones and memorials left. The earliest recorded burial in the parish records was in 1753 but a headstone found in the 19th century carried the date 1690.

And of course, with these gravestones come the stories.

Stories like that of Mary Crowther the last woman to do penance in the old church and whose gravestone is situated beside the Lych Gate, or that of Thomas Walker anti slave trade campaigner, supporter of the French Revolution who was indicted for sedition in 1794.  

A record of all the gravestones, 1974

Added to these are memorials to two families who took opposing sides in the great Chorlton Church schism and that of Samuel and Sarah Nixon who ran the Traveller’s Rest Beer shop on what was once Chorlton Row but is now Beech Road.

And there is plenty more …… but for the rest you will have to join me and Peter Topping at our two talks of the day on St Clements’s Church, and the campaign to refresh the graveyard.

Finds from the archaeological digs, 1971-82

The first of the talks is at St Ninians’s Church at the invitation of Chorlton Good Neighbours starting at 1.30, today, May 9th.*

The second will be tonight at the meeting of Chorlton Voice [the Civic Society] at 7.30, Chorlton Central Church, corner of Barlow Moor Road, Sandy Lane and Zetland Road

As well as sharing the stories of our past we want to alert people to the exciting new campaign to refresh the former graveyard.  

It was landscaped in 1984 and while it is still a pleasant place to sit and relax it needs some tender care and attention.

Location; Chorlton Green

Pictures; our parish graveyard, 2023 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, record of gravestones, Manchester City Council, 1974, and finds from the digs conducted by Angus Bateman, 1971-81

*Chorlton Good Neighbours, Wilbraham St Ninians Church, Egerton Road South M21 0XJ, 0161 881 2925, www.chorltongoodneighbours.org

**Chorlton Voice, Chorlton Central Church, corner of Barlow Moor Road, Sandy Lane and Zetland Road, 7.30, https://chorltonvoice.org/