Liverpool & South West Lancashire FHS - Forum

I just came across this snippet in a newspaper and was quite surprised that graves were being sold off or does undisposed mean grave sites? A very specific number of 636 if sites only.

For whatever reason I always thought this land belonged to the church or some other body. So why would a Miss Mason have owned this land and church pews?

Liverpool Mercury 30 Aug 1833

I'm a bit mystified about the graves, seems strange to sell a job lot like that, but the pews are often owned by individual families, I've come across them being left in a Will to another family member, I think I posted, a long time ago some documents copied from St Mary's Walton on the Hill, listing ownership, will see if I can come across them as an example.

Something on similar lines perhaps to Edge Hill, somebody may be making money?

https://www.liverpool-genealogy.org.uk/ ... hilit=pews

The graves might be similar, if somebody buys them the church makes money and the new owner might be able to make a profit in future years?

But it says the late Miss Mason is selling them. Who is she and where did she get them from? And why would anybody want to buy graves?

Doing a google search there are quite a few links to Miss Mason of Edge Hill, a local philanthropist it seems, I wonder if it's the same lady?

I would suspect perhaps an entrepreneur and on her death the land/property would have been sold.

I wonder if this is the same lady, from Google Books:

In a google book about The Mole of Edge Hill:

My memory may be wrong but I believe Williamson had his house in Mason Street, some of those houses having long gardens with the "hole" at the bottom of them the meoghbours all tried to fill up with rubbish, however never succeeded. If you visit Williamson's tunnels, entrance in that street and see the depth of them, you can understand why the rubbish never reached the entrance.

It certainly sounds like the same Miss Mason.

You know Mary I was brought up in Edge Hill and I never heard a word about Williamson and his tunnels until recentish years when it all started appearing on the internet.

It looks like this is how Miss Mason came to be owning graves:

Well I've certainly enjoyed this little sojourn into the life of Miss Mason, but I hope somebody may have a definitive answer about why the graves were up for sale, and bought.

I'm sure when we get online tomorrow morning Mary, Bertie and Blue and many others will have come up with the definitive answers to put us out of our misery, slaving away all night no doubt.

Night Night Mary I'm off to watch Corrie catchup lol.

p.s. What does it mean the carriages were horse drawn from Edge Hill to Crown Street? Surely horses hooves weren't trotting along railway tracks?

BarbaraW wrote:p.s. What does it mean the carriages were horse drawn from Edge Hill to Crown Street? Surely horses hooves weren't trotting along railway tracks?

I'm curious, I feel Hilary may know something about this, have sent her a message.

?

Disembarked at Edge Hill, horse drawn carriage(Tram) to Crown St, before any railway connection was made? To make any possible connection to carry on with journey.

So you think they definitely weren't train carriages that were drawn?

I can't see any reason why they would disconnect carriages from the engine, however if they did, they wouldn't have been the size and weight of todays carriages I wouldn't think.

Thanks Bert, I think that answers that.