A local historian is writing to the Pope to protest over an ‘abandoned’ Roman Catholic graveyard which he says has become a ‘drugs den’. The overgrown cemetery - known as Barton Upon Irwell Roman Catholic Graveyard - in the Peel Green area of Eccles has not been used for a burial since 1940.
Craig Ellis, who lives just over the boundary in Stretford, has studied the history of the area and says he has discovered that no-one actually owns the graveyard. The 52-year-old IT consultant told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “I’ve been investigating to find out who owns this cemetery for months.”
He said the small 30-metre by 30-metre cemetery was formerly owned by the de Trafford family, who were big landowners around Peel Green for hundreds of years. But when the family offloaded the burial ground to the Catholic church the necessary paperwork for ownership to be secured was never completed, meaning that the graveyard is now owned by no one.
