New Jerusalem Church, Wood Street

The New Jerusalem Church In Middleton was established in 1796 but meetings were held in homes. In 1801, meetings were moved to a room specially constructed above two loom houses in Higher Cross Street. The first church building opened on Wood St in 1832.

The building was set back from Wood St. and a small burial ground was provided at the front, with further graves on both sides of the building.

In 1964 the church building was sold to a transport firm but meetings continued in the adjacent school rooms.

After the building was demolished in 1978 and clearance of the site began a number of grave stones were uncovered, followed by the discovery of a coffin. This stopped building work on the site for a while and 60 sets of remains were later exhumed and moved to Middleton New (Boarshaw) Cemetery.

Examination of the Church records show that there were in fact 108 burials at the church between 1832 and 1880. In 1858 the original church building was demolished and a larger building erected on the same site. It is certain that most of the graves were built over at this time. When the site was cleared in 1978 it is probable that the search for burials only covered the small area at the front of the existing building.

The diagram below shows the outlines of the building in 1841 and 1891 along with a diagram of the 1832 yard. The red line is the approximate area of the later building showing which graves were lost.

Burial Information

Within the burial records, all burials have a plot indicated however, not all plots are labeled on the plan. The identified graves are shown on the plan below.

A full report on the search for burials can be found here New Jerusalem Report V2.pdf The appendix can be found here New Jerusalem Appendix1.pdf

 

 

The Church prior to demolition.

The plaque at Middleton New Cemetery marking the re-interments.