Brampton Graveyard

[little.Laura.J]

Hello, please you could have a look in the Brampton grave yard for me, I'm looking for some ancestors who came from that region with the surname Wills. 
any help would be greatly appreciated thankyou
Laura

[bobgraham]

Just so you don't think everybody is ignoring you, it was mainly me that trawled BrAmpton graveyard ( not BrOmpton as the above few posts seem to imply) but I no longer live near Brampton, Cumbria. In fact I spend most of my time abroad so it's up to some other kind soul to help.   bob

[robbiesmum]

sorry, Laura, I've checked the MIs and there are no gravestones for any WILLS family.
(We recorded all the MIs at Brampton Old Church and Brampton St Martins recently, they've just been published on CD by the Cumbria FHS)

Possibly they might have been buried at Farlam, rather than Brampton, since some of the WIlls family were baptised there?
cheers
robbiesmum

[bobgraham]

robbiesmum, remember there are 3 graveyards in Brampton now. The old one out by the original church, intermediate one next to church and "modern" one out near old one.  bob

[clearly]

Both of the old graveyards are covered in Robbiesmum's mammoth transcription.  I am fairly certain I have seen Wills gravestones in St Thomas a'Becket Church, Farlam.  Will check but can't get there till middle of next week. There is a transcript of Farlam gravestones in Carlisle Archives Centre.

[robbiesmum]

Hi Bob
we tried to transcribe all the gravestones in the Brampton churchyards before 1964 - that being the date the new cemetery opened.

In 1965, a landslip at the old church led to several graves at the old church being exhumed and re-interred in the new cemetery - so we also transcribed any pre 1964 gravestones in the new cemetery, as they may have been moved from the old churchyard.

but no WILLS family in any pre 1964 gravestones that we found
cheers
robbiesmum

[Jalkatz]

Hi Robbiesmum,
My grandfather was one of the people affected by the landslip and I've been unable to find where his remains were moved to - I had assumed it was to another part of the same graveyard.  He was John Edwin Simpson who died in 29 December 1957.  Are the transcriptions online anywhere?
Best wishes,
Jackie

[robbiesmum]

Hi Jackie
I was told (though I don't know how accurate that is) that all those moved had been transferred to the new cemetery - though not all their gravestones were, as some were too wide. The newspaper accounts of the time don't mention any being moved to elsewhere in the Old Church, only those moved to the new cemetery.

if you visit the new cemetery there is an area which has nearly all the older stones (before 1964), and a few spaces with no gravestone, so I'd assumed that was probably also for people moved from the old churchyard but without a gravestone.
either way, we didn't see a stone for your grandfather, sorry.
best wishes
robbiesmum

[bobgraham]

I remember a skull being found downstream and it causing a bit of a fuss till someone worked out that it had probably washed out of the old graveyard.  bob