West Orchard Congregational Chapel

Morning, Neil This view from BFA probably shows it best. The buildings were at the back of the chapel. In your first photo the bricked up archway is at right angles to the chapel with an arched temporary building and then a car in front on the BFA view. Your second photo is the same block but as seen from the road after all the other buildings shown on BFA have gone. I think it was a school originally and had a similar window at the back as you can see on BFA.

London Road Cemetery.

I can see a 'Cong. B G' marked on Rob's 1906 map - it's opposite Leigh Mills and I think visible here on the BFA 1931 Map. I don't think it was there up to 1971 though, was it?

B for Boys and G for Girls. I don't think that any of the West Orchard side of the river survived for long once they started building the Precinct, but I don't know when the rest was demolished.

I was on about the Hill St Cemetery that Garlands posted Helen - I thought BG was Burial Ground?

Sorry, I thought you were still writing about West Orchard. Yes, B G for burial ground.

Why would the burial ground have been so far from the Chapel - lack of room?

I think that there must have been specific policy for the chapels built much later than the churches. They were dotted about and don't seem to have graveyards connected to the plots. I think to start with most people were buried in St Michael's and Holy Trinity graveyards. There wasn't a need for a lot of space because when graves got old they were dug up and the bigger bones stored under St Michael's. The exceptions were for Catholics and other types of church. We know that Catholic St Osburgs had a few graves round it to start with. Hill Street was packed with houses in 1610, so there was no room then for graveyards. The Holy Trinity and St Michael's graveyard was only extended over St Mary's Cathedral ruins and the Bishop's Orchard in the early 1800s, with a rapidly growing population and perhaps when people wanted more permanent or grander graves? The chapel graves policy may have been to do with a lack of space or maybe because by the time the chapels were built, the authorities knew more about pollution and hygiene?