( Chorlton historian John Lloyd, who contributed many fascinating insights into the history of the village, died in 1991. This is extracted from one of the last articles he wrote. It was published 23 April 1992 in the South Manchester Reporter as part of a series of articles on the history of St. Clement’s. )

The yard seems to have been licensed about 1700 and within its restricted bounds was by the mid-nineteenth century nearing exhaustion. In 1869 somebody, anonymously wrote to the Home Office with the result that a Dr. Holland visited to inspect the yard.

In his opinion, there was little or no more room available and a new burial ground was necessary. Other than the small plot in front of the Wesleyan Chapel in Beech Road, no other facilities were available so the rector did the only thing he could and offered the ground surrounding the New Church.

There was an immediate outcry from residents in the vicinity and no more was heard of the proposal. No doubt hoping that if the problem was ignored it would go away, use of the yard continued for a further twelve years.

There were times when the business of the gravedigger must have been unpleasant.

Then the Ratepayers Association complained and a Dr. Hoffman held an enquiry at the Lloyds Hotel. Withington Local Board ¹ was by now involved and some startling and objectionable details of scenes they had witnessed soon satisfied the Inspector.

He stopped the enquiry before it had run its course and declared the yard to be full. In February 1882 the Churchwardens received notice that the Parish Churchyard was full ² and that no further burial grounds in the Parish be allowed without the approval of a secretary of state.

Problems, problems. Manchester had recently opened its new Southern Cemetery in 1879 but, as the city was at pains to point out, interment there was subsidised by their ratepayers and the Local Board burials would be charged at the full economic rate. And that is how the matter had to rest until Withington was absorbed into Manchester in 1904.

¹ Withington Local Board 1875 - 1894 was the local government body covering the area of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Didsbury, Burnage, Withington and Whalley Range. Similar local boards operated in the rest of England and Wales.

² There were still burials in the graveyard after 1882 in family graves.