Nostalgia ….. penny ago ….. memories of a past Chorlton-cum-Hardy

These are pictures of our Lych Gate on the green.

1979

They were taken in the winter of 1979, although I am well prepared to accept a date in the early 1980s.

And looking at them again after a passage of 45 years is to be struck by how dilapidated and neglected it had become.

1979

Once the proud gift of Mr. and Mrs. Brooks who lived at Barlow Hall and who buried their children in the parish graveyard just 90 odd years later it was in a poor state.

There were holes in the panels above the entrance, and boards had been placed over part of the elegant woodwork in the tower while the brickwork looked tired.

It would be another 14 years before the roof of the tower had some tender care and attention, and a full 45 years before the whole structure was restored using materials sympathetic to the original.

The finished project has received a lot of praise, but as ever with those comments came the inevitable ones which suggested Chorlton was no long what it once was.

And … yes on one level it is not what it was.  

It would be naïve to think after almost half a century almost anywhere is going to be the same.

1980

But for some the logical extension is that it is not so good.

And that got me thinking about the Lych Gate which certainly does look better than it did in 1979, and in turn the parish graveyard which had become neglected with some of its 360 head stones in a poor state, with some in danger of toppling over and others the subject to mindless vandalism.

The upshot was that in the 1980s it had had a make over which created a peaceful place with benches, bushes and trees, which in the years since have matured.

The downside, and there was a downside to the makeover was the loss of of most of the headstones, which recorded the names of those who had been buried here since at least the 18th century.

Those inscriptions were indeed a real set of historical records which have now been lost, and despite perhaps the good intentions of the planners their removal was an act of vandalism.

And while we do have a record of the inscriptions made by City Works in 1975, they can no way compensate for the disappearance of the originals.

2023

That said the graveyard had become a sorry place. The church which the headstones surrounded had been closed in 1940 and demolished nine years later bringing to an end a history of worship which stretched back to the early 16th century and perhaps even earlier.  

And in turn the graveyard had been locked off and pretty much neglected by most people, save for the odd trespassing kids and those interested in the inscriptions.

All of which makes it a tad easy and historically lazy to mumble things were better then.

They were different but I am not so sure they were better.  

At 75, I can remember a time when I lived in houses without central heating where in winter ice formed on the inside of windows, and when much of what we take as standard medical care was still in the realms of science fiction.

And when the much-vaunted local grocer’s shops had little variety and sold produce which was often close to its sell by date, and for a six year old telly on the one channel finished early, with programmes interrupted because the service broke down.

There will be few today who remember the BBC’s offering of the “Potter’s Wheel” or “London to Brighton in Four Minutes” which went on for ever while a clever technician fitted the fault.

2024

Of course I suppose on those day I could have climbed over the wall into the parish graveyard and read the inscriptions on the headstones and wondered who had had the job of ringing the bell in the Lych Gate tower on New Year’s Eve.

But that is perhaps another story for another time.

Location; Chorlton Green

Pictures; the Lych Gate, 1979- 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson