The riddle of the missing bodies. - Page 2

WillowTheWhisp · 22-01-2006, 22:17

An uproar? Remains discovered? I think if you check with Cannon St Baptist Church you'll find that the location of the graves was documented and they were all respectfully exhumed and re-interred before any foundation digging took place. I don't remember any furore or discovery of bodies unknown when the actual foundations were being laid. Does anyone else?

Margaret Pilkington · 22-01-2006, 22:21

No I can't remember any uproar. I think it might have been about the time that we were having some alterations to the house and the builder went and bought a long sidestone from a grave to use as a lintel for a window that was being put in......I remember being upset about it at the time......it had someone's name on it and I felt it was disrespectful......but they used it anyway.....my hubby thought I was being over sensitive.

Lockie25 · 22-01-2006, 22:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Acrylic-bob

I was watching Time Team earlier this evening. Yes I know it's facile and superficial but it is a marginal improvement on Songs of Praise and You've Been Framed. Anyway, it started me thinking. Since Accrington is a Saxon place name and there is some circumstantial evidence to suggest that the roots of the area may go back even further, it occured to me to wonder what had happened to all the people who had died in the borough between then and now.

Clearly some of them ended up in Church Kirk and some of them ended up in Altham, but in either case there are no grave markers that date back before the civil war. It is as though the hundreds of dead of the period 700ad to 1650-ish have just disappeared. Even if people died at the miserly rate of one per year that still represents 950 burials.
To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever mentioned coming across late saxon, norman or medieval burials in their gardens while they were digging the foundations for their conservatory.

So, where are they?

You tell us Peter after all you have all the insider information!

Acrylic-bob · 22-01-2006, 22:25

Errrm, according to my recollection, I used to play around there when I was little, the graveyard lay between Hyndburn Road and the river Hyndburn. Consequently it is now covered by the carpark, not the building which is mainly situated over the two old gasometers which stood behind the graveyard.

WillowTheWhisp · 22-01-2006, 22:28

Yes that's right A-B, it was Hyndburn Rd side of the river. An old member of Cannon Street Baptists, long since passed on, once told me that people were actually baptised in the river down there in the good old days so it must have been a bit deeper than it is now.

Acrylic-bob · 22-01-2006, 22:31

In the "Stink"??? Euuurrrgh! I thought that baptism was supposed to be a cleansing ritual.

WillowTheWhisp · 22-01-2006, 22:36

Well it's more for cleansing of the soul rather than the body. They could have gone home and had a wash afterwards.

They probably didn't have any purpose built dunking holes at the time. I know Cannon St has one underneath some floorboards now behind the pulpit. The one at our church is behind a folding door type thingy.

Doug · 22-01-2006, 22:44

I recall reading that most church yards were cleared in the 1850s when the Victorians went on a rebuilding drive, there was also a growing shortage of space so many old stones and grave residents where moved on to take residents burial pits or crypts. Many of the new churches of that era will have been lost over the years either to new uses or cleared. What we need to look for are the old church grounds that disappeared when the towns began to out grow there common boundaries after the industrial revolution.

Madhatter · 22-01-2006, 23:05

oh, well thanks for that, simple when you know.

Madhatter · 22-01-2006, 23:09

You do realise that the government isn't putting anymore land aside for cemetarys that are nearly full don't you, that will mean re-use of existing plots

big al · 22-01-2006, 23:40

I remember in my exploring days of my youth am old graveyard at the end of Hope St in Gt Harwood. By the wall on the left, there is an old iron gravestone. Back then I remember it was just about legible & know it dated back to 1600s. Whether it is still there or even legible now is another thing cos I dont think the place has been tended for years now.

WillowTheWhisp · 23-01-2006, 08:45

An iron gravestone? Now that is intriguing. Anybody in Gt Harwood fancy going and having a look for it?

harwood red · 23-01-2006, 15:01

will try to get down there soon to have a look for you willow

harwood red · 23-01-2006, 17:11

Well I had a little walk down and it's really overgrown now. Took some trekking through, but to be honest I found it more interesting than I thought it would be. I took some pics that may be of interest to look at and yes I found the iron gravestone (took me a while

) unfortunately you can no longer read anything on it as you can probably see yourself from the pics.
pic 3 - was prob the oldest legible one I found, and pics 4, 5 & 6 are of the iron one, is that the one you were talking about big al??

Acrylic-bob · 23-01-2006, 17:57

Isnt the internet a wonderful thing?

Within minutes of seeing harwood red's photo of the cast iron gravemarker I was able to identify the manufacturer from an identical model located in the grounds of Holy Trinity Church in Bosham, West Sussex.

The manufacturer is Messers Ritchie, Watson and Gow of The Etna Foundry, Lily Bank Road, Eglinton Toll, Glasgow. they operated from 1854 to 1964 and specialised in gravemarkers. It may be that the inscription is actually lower down on the marker, below the grass, or may even be buried.

Incidentally, James Bateman opened an Iron Foundry in Water Street, Manchester, in 1782, which he named The Etna Foundry. Although in his opening announcement, published in the Manchester Mercury, he lists a bewhildering array of products, he makes no mention of manufacturing gravemarkers.