The Hidden Buried

I think very few people realise that some of Manchester city centre’s green spaces are actually old burial grounds.

Take All Saints Park, in the middle of the MMU campus.

On a sunny day, it’s brilliant to see it full of people… students sitting on the grass, eating lunch, chatting, making use of one of the few proper green spaces we have in the city centre.

But beneath the grass are the remains of more than 16,000 people.

It says so on the signs at the entrances. But who reads signs these days?!

This was once the burial ground of All Saints Church, Chorlton-upon-Medlock. The burial ground opened in 1820 and was partly closed in 1856, after the Burial Acts began dealing with overcrowded and insanitary urban graveyards.

By then, of course, it was already too late for the thousands buried here.

Most people probably don’t even realise there was a church here at all. It was badly damaged during the Second World War and later demolished, but the graves remained.

There’s also a small connection to one of my earlier posts: this is where Sarah Townsend married Thomas Studd in 1855 - the couple behind Mr Thomas’s Chop House.

And All Saints isn’t unusual.

St John’s Gardens has more than 22,000 people buried beneath it. Angel Meadow has an even darker burial history. Across Manchester, quite a few of the places where the city breathes are also places where the city buried its dead.

So I don’t think the point is that people shouldn’t use these spaces.

Quite the opposite.

Manchester needs more public green space, not less.

But it does make me wonder: if more people knew what was under their feet, would they behave any differently?

Or is this just what cities do - layer one life over another?

Historic photo: Manchester Libraries Archives, 1910