Lost stories from Chorlton’s graveyard ………

 I am looking at a picture of our own parish graveyard sometime in the late 1970s and it records a scene which has long gone.

When the gravestones were numerous. 1979

Many of the gravestones would be removed during the make over which turned a neglected and forlorn spot into a pleasant recreational area.

In total there had once been 361 monuments to those who had been buried in the graveyard, but only a few survived the rest are lost to us.

And that of course is a terrible loss, both for the descendants of those who were interred here and also to the historian wanting to uncover Chorlton’s past.

Because here had been buried the people of plenty, along with the less wealthy, ranging from farmers, tradesmen to the families of farm labourers.

The Stopford family, 1979

The earliest recorded burials date from the mid-1700s with the possibility there may have been some from the previous century.

We do have the parish burial records along with an inventory made in 1975 of the 361 gravestones, but that will never be the same as standing in front of them and reading not just the names but also the messages that were left.

The Isherwood family, 1979

Like that of William Barlow Stopford who “fell asleep in Jesus” aged just 23, who was buried with his father who was 31 when he died and William’s brother Frank who died on November 14th just 19 months old. 

Sadly, their gravestone is one of the missing ones, along with that of the Isherwood family, whose gravestone records the names of six, two of whom died at 8 and 14 months.

In time I will go looking for their stories but for now all I have are pictures of their gravestones and the locations of where the two sat.  The Stopford’s rested just east of the lych gate and was the first you would encounter on entering the graveyard while the Isherwood plot was one of six graves that rested against the south wall of the church.

I wish I had taken more on what must have been a spring day in 1979, but soe far I have only turned up the two images amongst the 1500 or negatives which I am slowly digitalizing.

There may be more but at present that is it.

Location; the parish graveyard

Pictures; lost scenes from our parish graveyard, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson