Hundreds of graves to be protected after Blackburn chapel sale

Church authorities have said the graves will be protected

Hundreds of graves in a century-old cemetery are to be looked after by church authorities after its heritage-listed chapel was sold.

The 1828 building in Blackburn's New Row Methodist Burial Ground was put on the market in 2016.

The sale alarmed 76-year-old Barbara Robb whose grandmother is buried in the Heys Lane graveyard.

Church authorities have now given an assurance that no graves will be moved.

Reverend Stuart Smith, the superintendent minister for the West Pennine Moors Circuit, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that the burial ground was not part of the sale.

He added: "The Methodist church will protect and look after the graves. There are no plans to move them.

"If at some time in the future they did need to be moved, a suitable new resting place for them would be found."

The chapel was built extended and upgraded several times later in the 19th Century.

The burial ground was the main graveyard for non-conformist churches in Blackburn and the surrounding area until the opening of the municipal Pleasington Cemetery.

Mrs Robb said: "I am absolutely pleased the graves will be protected. I am thrilled they will be looked after.

"My grandmother, who lost her husband in The Battle of the Somme, was married and is buried there along with some other of our relatives."

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