St.James churchyard
 

The Lancs Telegraph are reporting of plans to build a cultural centre including a bandstand, new seats and new entrances in the churchyard. Groove thinks this can only be good for the town.

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Which would be ok if it wasn't for the fact that there are still bodies buried there. Call me old fashioned but I really do object to burial grounds being used for anything else but burials.

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There also going to fell some of the trees Bob.....thinking about it, i can see a lot of objection to this. And like you said its sacred ground. But it has been done before at this and other sites in Accy.

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The bandstand and seats will be ideal - it will isolate the drunks and druggies away from the market shoppers.

I am not sentimental about bodies.
No doubt they will be reburied with religious rites to pacify those have a religion.

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Isn't this conditional upon £30K worth of lottery money? And is that not in turn conditional upon the facility being a multi-cultural one? It could well mean the Accy Mela is moved down there for next year. You never know - it could well end up being a permanent camp site, as in St Paul's churchyard.

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I was recently contacted by a member of the St James Church Committee, they only mentioned land scaping and tidying up the place.
I supplied them with a plan showing location of the burials sites, as all the grave stones were moved some years ago.
Retlaw.

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I hope they don't get allocated the money then -what an awful idea.

It's a lovely quiet green spot just out of the center -I sat in there on a blustery Saturday lunch-time at the end of October eating my sandwiches...I find calm aids the digestion:rolleyes:

I am against the chopping down of trees on principle, unless they are diseased or are a danger.

Why ruin such a recogniseable and historical part of town...

Pics attached taken in August 2010...

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Could not agree more, what a waste of money.

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The words elephant and white spring to mind.

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Accrington has had its fair share of white elephants a bandstand how often is the one un oak hill put to use 12 months and it would be a vandalised bedraggled lookin elephant ridiculous idea

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Surely if you are going to build a bandstand in the town centre you actually put it in the town centre not on one of the side streets :confused:

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You Hyndburn folk aren't short of a bit of brass, are you?
£30,000 lottery money so is that £90,000 from Hyndburn Council?
If it's already grassed £120,000 for an outside seating and performance area(doesn't mention bandstand), two entrances, four pillars and chopping down five trees seems quite a lot!
No wonder they can't replace Garindas favourite Town Centre benches, they must be very expensive.
Still, an outside performance area will take the pressure off the Market Hall!

All that crochet work will shrink out there.

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'A planning application, which is part of a conservation area masterplan, proposes a “cultural heart of Accrington”
Accrington heritage site set for £125k revamp (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Personally, as the town's parish church, I think it's already the 'cultural heart of Accrington'.

'Saint James Church is to be found in the town centre of Accrington, in the middle of the only bit of green space. It is over 460 years old. The worship is what used to be known as 'Lancashire Low' offered with quiet devotion. A warm welcome awaits those who love or are searching for God in Christ Jesus.'
St James, Accrington - Lancashire | Diocese of Blackburn

I quite like the churchyard's relative peace, and quiet, as it is.

'In line with plans to open the church up for more community use, music rehearsal and performance, an outside seating and performance area will be created.'

'Performance area'?

Could be good, but judging from the quality of much of the culture we see in the borough, could be space for yet more crap.

Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

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Actually, it doesn't mention seats, just a 'seating area'. So perhaps you'll have to bring your own bench! Not much progress there then.

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There must be plans/artist's impressions of what they're planning to do, floating about.

Anyone seen any?

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It's interesting to see just how many trees there used to be in the churchyard.

Accrington|Historic Lancashire

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Looks really different -never seen all the tombs before...

The trees in the churchyard now are better than those in the old pics though I think. It really does look quite different...What year are the pics from?

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Just looked at thse 2 pics again -i think the water colour has been painted from the B&W Photo -they are just too similar....

The view back is now obscured by trees -epects it's changed anyway - chimneys gone probably...

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Think it's a tinted copy of the BW photo not a painting.

Much better with all the gravestones flat and I think too many trees in a small space can be very oppressive - not a great fan of big trees at all.

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They are great pictures. Notice the old Bay Horse on Church.ST. Most of the tombstones are still in the churchyard, made into a path.

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I seem to remember, not so long ago, there being a similar proposal regarding Christchurch's burial ground. Nigel Rix was behind a project to tarmac the area and turn it into a carpark and bin storage site. Rix, committed Christian that he is, saw nothing wrong, immoral or sacriligeous in leaving the bodies in situ, beneath the tarmac. The Vicar, whose name escapes me, wittered something typically Anglican PC about especially cherishing those of our forebears about to be entombed a second time in tarmac.

As has been remarked, this seems to be growing trend.

Throughout all of our history as a species, the places where we place our dead have been held to be places apart. Places redolant of the awe and mystery of the final act of life. Places of instruction, inspiring pity and piety in equal measure. I do not recall them ever being held to be places of facile entertainment.

If this proposal is effected, it will complete the desecration commenced in the late sixties when most of the vaults, headstones and statuary were removed and the area flattened. How long, one wonders, will it be before the area is needed for car parking?

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Did put this up in the Planning Application thread on Monday ...please concentrate ... ;):D

Case File

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Have looked at the heritage statement in the application and makes sense to me. Gravestones should never have been used for paths... they wear away and can be slippy. Should look good when done.

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Doh. Should have realised you'd have done your stuff.

You are a star. x

:)

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Rix now you've spoiled my night bob reminding me of that guy:mad:

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'Seating will be provided in the form of low level stone walls'.
Let's hope the 'performances' don't go on too long! Although the council won't be able to remove 'low stone walls' as easily as benches.

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'Bravo!'

'Encore!'

http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:A...2Zgj6KAy9v59ro

:rolleyes:

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Are they the audience or the performers?

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Perhaps it's going to be like Cornwall's Minack Theatre?

You sit on low stone walls there too.

http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:A...F-BGi6PpwKlHDg

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makes a mockery of the words final resting place, there used to be a graveyard on hyndburn road, now a car park for homebase. there used to be a graveyard on union street now a car park for the social services building and a part of the arndale centre. there used to be a graveyard on abbey street, now a car park for the swan pub. there is a theme developing here. do we realy want a bandstand and seating on the graves in St James. All the grass you see within the curtilage of the church have internments in them.
All these graveyards contained the remains of the people that built hyndburn, are we showing due respect :death1::death1::death1:

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if they were pretty recent burials then No it aint showing due respect,as fer graveyards that aint been used fer eons,then the jurys out we me, the one yeh mention on Hyndburn Rd Dave was used fer sheep waiting to be slaughtered across the road,when i was lad, so yeh could argue thats showing less respect?:confused:

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Probably one reason they ain't burring me Dave, its definitely ashes to ashes for me;)

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Sorry about that, Jay. Some bad smells just seem to linger.

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I have it planned how I want to go, and how I want disposing off.

I want to be shot... by a jealous husband on my 90th birthday.
I want to be cremated..........and my ashes placed under a loose womans bed.

and I dont mean "loose", as in falling to bits :flasher8:

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good point, but sheep are not car parks.
I supervised the exumations of all the bodies in this grave yard, and the internments were of the people who built accrington into what you see today(well whats left), mill owners, foundry owners etc.

I dont think how long ago they died should impact on how you treat them in death.
So building a bandstand on them to me is disrespectful:death1:

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Thats a near enough quote that an old mate of mine used to say, only he wanted to be shot in the back when he was 95, by a jealous husband.

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Oak St Congregational Church, & Graveyard is now a carpark, circa 1966.

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Well I might agree with you there Dave especially if the jealous husbands wife was a 21 year old green eyed blond with big knockers:D

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yep,but sheep crapping all oer the graves don't seem very respectful to me either,so like i said, jurys out wi me.

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Groove thinks its all about time. If the deceased in them graves have no relatives or anyone for that matter to tend,visit or even know about these graves it seems they are then fare game to be re-located...Groove too is unsure of the morality of this undertaking.

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So you would no doubt accept that it would be alright to disinterr all those currently buried inside Westminster Abbey and St Paul's Cathedral on the same grounds. And presumably the same would go for all those currently taking up space for no good reason in cemeteries across the world administered by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission?

What sort of country have we made where even the dead can find no rest?

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Those plots would have been sold, and bought by people who thought their final resting place was for time immemorial.

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I don’t see what all this fuss is about exhuming the contents of a few ancient coffins. We have always has Charnel House and Ossuaries in this country where human remains have been placed after graveyards are full to capacity or a new development needs to go over the top. In fact, given the overall grim ambiance of the place, I’m quite sure Ossy was named after the latter.

The only thing that concerns me is that this is not the only announcement this week about the redevelopment of Accy town centre; we have also had news about the Arcade being tarted up. In both schemes, money is reliant on national lottery funding. It seems to me that given the record of previous local grandiose plans that have come to nowt, the council would have been far better advised to say nothing until all the money is in place and then make public the go-ahead.

Maybe then some of those old bones that are dug up could be used to go on display in the Arcade. It would make the town centre one hell of a tourist attraction..A few skulls over the Church Street entrance and leg and arms over each shop window.

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Yup.

More sensationalist headlines, and sloppy reporting, re: the Arcade.

Which only becomes apparent, when you read further into the Observer, and realise this isn't news, just spin, with no finance in place, and it all being reliant on securing Lottery funding.

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Its probably been supplied by people who wish to deflect the focus on other things i reckon.;):rolleyes:

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That was my thought on the subject too Cashy....we must re-start our anti cynical pills.
Can you lend me some of yours? I seem to have run out of them.

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crap is biodegradable, tarmac takes a bit longer to break down

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am aware of that, its the fact it was done that dont seem oer respectable.

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Sheep are fine - they keep down the grass. It's the idiots who walk their dogs in cemetries who I object to, because dogs just p£ss and £hit all over the gravestones - and I'm not talking about those that have been dead for a couple of centuries, but those that have been dead for a couple of months.

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Dogs unless Guide Dogs should be banned from all cemmys in my view.

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Aye, cats too. Rat poison should be put down for them.

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not sure how they do it on headstones (gravestones), but you appear to have lumped all dog walkers as people who let dogs defacate where they like without cleaninng it up. Not the case most dog walkers pick up after their dogs. I say this as someone who has worked in this environment and speak from experience not distant observation. Also I would be classed as one of those idiots, as I have a dog and occasionaly walk it in the cemetery. I still say a car park is more disrespectful than poo
:dogrun:

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Err....they stand alongside, lift a leg up and let loose with a stream of yellow liquid. However, if they're lad dogs from Church (where they are very clever), they stand on their two back legs, sieze the instrument that lies between the said legs with their front paws and do it that way.

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Don't think anyone's talking about digging up bones for this project, just re-siting a few gravestones now used as paths.

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whilst you have a (tad sarky) point, its a point non the less, but not compatible with the first message. so make your mind up, is it number 1's and 2's or just number1's
:ooh: :ooh: :ooh:

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Surely there aren't people who would do that are there cashy:rolleyes::rolleyes:;)

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I believe they sell them quite cheaply in Boots Margaret, so I'd get a big stock in if I were you, we could need plenty on here if the last few weeks is anything to go by;)

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You should know-yer damn good at it yerself.:D:D:D

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ya you learn quickly on here:D:D

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The point I was anxious to make regarding this proposal has nothing to do with ossuaries. It has to do with the practice of using graveyards for other purposes while the previous occupants are still in situ.
Surely that is wrong, immoral and sacriligeous.
As far as I am concerned providing the bodies were removed they could turn the wretched place into a three ring bluddy circus if they were so inclined. I mean, how would it be if they wanted Burnley Road cemetery for a new Tesco and all they did was remove the gravestones and started building, do you think anyone would object?

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I would agree with you if that cemetery was still in use; but as far as I am aware it has been dormant for many years. I do not know when the last burial was there – no doubt Retlaw will come on here and give us a date. Furthermore, I have not seen any flowers or symbols placed on any of the remaining gravestones. In fact, I suspect that some of those gravestones may contain nothing but soil beneath. Someone may wish to confirm that. So therefore there is no personal or, emotional attachment to anyone resting there although invariably some will have descendants currently residing within the Borough

I would also state the case that some of those who may still rest there or whose remains have now been removed would have been the people who built up Accy and its industry in the 18th and 19th century into what then would have been one of the most prosperous towns, for its size, in the country; we only have to look around and see their legacy in the form of the marvellous late Georgian and Victorian architecture, of which St James’s burial ground forms a focal point. These buildings and their immediate environment now provide one of the town’s greatest assets; the fact that they have not been exploited as such has resulted in a great cost to the town.

If those people who now lay in the churchyard were now still alive, what do you think their attitude would be? I suspect it would certainly not be a mixture of overt religious sentimentality combined with toxic luddism but would in fact be one which embraces the Victorian ideals of progress and change and an attitude which says get on with it. Of course, this is all academic; I doubt if we shall ever see the money for this scheme (or the Arcade one) to go ahead.

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Hear hear, well said.

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Errrm, actually 'T', the Victorian age was characterised by overt sentimentality in all areas of society and nowhere was this expressed more strongly than in matters of mortality and the rituals and parephenalia of death. Indeed, poor Queen Victoria managed to turn mourning into a fashionable and very profitable national industry. From which I am sure that the idea of turning a burial ground, with burials still in it and a churchyard burial ground at that, into an area of, as I said before, facile entertainment, would be abhorent and a cause of national scandal to our Victorian forebears.

I am not being in the least luddite in objecting to the proposal as it currently stands. I just want the bodies removed and reburied before we commence holding performances on top of them. At base, it is a matter of simple respect and courtesy. I am surprised and a little amazed that you cannot see this.

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I doubt if after all this time there would be much left in the way of actual bodies, more like a few piles of bones and some coffin handles. That would require archaeology to sort it out and that don't come cheap. Ain't gonna happen.

Anyway we are walking over our ancestors' bones unknowingly all the time in the form of Roman, Anglo Saxon etc cemeteries, plague pits and the like. Nobody seems to mind about that.

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Because we don't know where those cemeteries, plague pits and the like are.

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Manchester's a pretty good bet, more specifically Old Trafford. ;) :D







Bring on the howls of outrage & indignation from the Manky U fans :s_aim1:

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The quantity or condition of the remains is immaterial. If the cost is prohibitive then it must be the project that fails or more money must be found.

To walk upon a grave unknowingly is one thing. But to know and to do it anyway speaks volumes about the kind of society that we have become.

Would you be as sanguine if it were your grandparents or parents graves that were at risk, Susie?

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And in any case I do not think that the case for improved access has been presented at all convincingly. What is wrong with maintaining the area as a place of quiet contemplation amid the bustle of the town?
What is so onerous about having to walk around it?
It strikes me that this is yet another example of HBC staff desperately seeking to prove that they are worth their salary and benefits.
It would not surprise me to discover that the originator of this proposal, who has much to say concerning the visual impact of the current graveyard, or lack of it, does not even live in the Borough.

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The short answer is yes. Behind my house is a cemetery opened in 1874 and now closed. It is full to bursting with thousands of graves only some of which have memorials. There is no empty space. It is used every day by hundreds of people to get from A to B and many of them walk on the grass rather than keep to the tarmac path. Children play there and it is a welcome green space. As yet no one has complained about sacrilege and all the bodies are still sleeping peacefully. To me once someone is dead what happens to their body is immaterial. They are gone.

I absolutely agree, when they've gone they've gone.
We won't find any of the interred complaining about what's going on on top of their peaceful repose.
I just wonder though, they or their relatives paid for a monument or stone to be place as a memorial, at what time does that contract of respect for the dead and the cost for their trimmings become just so much paving stone?
Personally a quick whoomf up the chimney I'll be gone no problem, no grave for relatives to feel guilty about not tending, let them have the occasional thought about me in similar vain to which I consider the loved ones that went before me.
But, at which point do we remove and tarmac over the past only to say, "oops that was a bit previous of us wasn't it? Showed no real respect, still, we now have another area that no-one knows what to do with".

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Thank you Less. And I don't see that leaving the stones round the edge of the area or using them for paving is any worse than leaving them in situ and letting them fall over. I also think that the proposed development is quite respectful, not tasteless and makes use of a bit of green space that otherwise is just a quick through route.

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None of the grave markers that are at present forming a foot path round the church we ever stood up, all were laid flat, or on 4 short pedastals.
I have enough information on that grave yard whereby they could all be put back where they belong.
One of the reasons I was contacted by a committee member was, they suspected some of the burials in the late 1800's & early 1900's, were not deep enough, and could cause a problem with landscaping.
Take a close look around the burial area and several depressions are visible where the graves have sunk, some of those sites are vaults, and the coffins in the may be in a reasonable state.

Retlaw.

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Oh Dear, A-B I suspect it is you yourself who is suffering from the mawkish sentimentality of the late Victorian age. While I would certainly agree that by the latter part of the Great Queen's reign, the business of burials had developed into what would now be termed a cutting-edge industry and that the process of mourning had become institutionally ritualised, the same cannot be said of the earlier part of her life. While I would not be prepared to specify any turning point – probably somewhere between the death of her beloved Albert in 1861 and the passing of the Burial Grounds Act in the mid-1880’s - then certainly the earlier period was characterised by the wanton destruction of existing graveyards in the name of economic and social progress

A case in point is what occurred here in London in the mid-1860’s. The Midland Railway Company designated a terminus at St Pancras; there was one problem – a cemetery lay in the way. What did they do? They disinterred about 10,000 corpses and reburied them elsewhere. But did they dig up the entire contents of the cemetery? No, just the ones that were lying on top (that of, course, being the common practice right up until the mid-19c). There was, of course, an outcry but that probably had more to do with one of the periodic outbreaks of cholera which was occurring at the time and was linked to the mass exhumation. It did not, of course, stop the railways from further encroaching over sacred burial ground; some years later, they wrecked the St Sepulchres graveyard at Holborn when the viaduct was constructed there. There are numerous other examples, both in London and in other cities and large towns. The crucial point is not that they could be sure of removing all the bodies, but that they actually knew that human remains would be left in situ.

You can of course, argue that the railways were an economic necessity, but what did the Victorians do next? Why, they turned their old cemeteries and their new, out of town ones into their own version of common entertainment – they tidied up the former and they landscaped the latter, all so that they could go for their weekend strolls and picnics while saying hello to their recently and dearly departed, while at the same time, no doubt enjoying some mirth and facile jollity.

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I quite agree with all these points - to me it is fine as it is and the seating already there is adequate. It is a nice leafy spot, perfect to while away a little time. I always go there when I come back to Accy before going in to have a wander in the library. There was no queue of people waiting to sit when I was last there -in fact I was quite alone...

I think there has been a shift in values and as life is no longer given that much respect these days then neither are the lives of those who came before us. Cheap'n'cheerful has replaced quality things that last and in the same way the dead are even more disposable -why waste valuable space on them, what right do they have to it...

I presume it would be for the Church of England to decide if work can go ahead and how it should be executed. The ground would surely have to be de-consecrated in order for it to have a different use to that which it was originally designated for...

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995. They're Moving Father's Grave to Build a Sewer (Traditional English) - YouTube this seems very apt.:D

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I'm slightly confused here. Were the actual graves under the gravestones on the path ? That being so, we have been walking over them for years, and still will be with the new plans.

What nicer, therefore, to move the gravestones,to the lovely spot they have suggested, under new trees and a profusion of daffodils, so that people can read about our ancestors in a lovely setting. Bet no-one ever read them when they were laid flat as a pathway. I know I didn't.

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I think they should be restored to their original positions.
Retlaw.

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Mmmmm ... I still feel it will attract more reflective interest in the new positions suggested. That's what history is all about, isn't it ?

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So, why were they moved to the paths in the first place ?
Were they considered unsafe in their original position ?

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I do too Retlaw! and I DID read all the laid flat headstones. If I was walking on them, i was curious enough to read what I was walking on! Many of the important folk from Accy are mentioned. They could even be OUR ancestors, its just that most folk havent delved far enough back into their past!

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I will, certainly, make an effort to visit and read the headstones now, Atarah, due to the fact that just recently my interest has been awakened in local history.

Still think, though, that where they are thinking of putting them is very respectful to them.

If some of the ground is sinking, then it may not be viable to put them back in their original position ?

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Sunken ground can be infilled and leveled off, then put the grave stones back, get some of those on so called community service to do some proper work for a change, & level it up.
Retlaw