Extract from ebook re:burials at Walkers Croft - this will explain all
Walkers Croft
By now, Manchester was expanding at an unprecedented pace. The growth of the cotton
trade sucked in workers and their families from miles around. Poor diet and housing
conditions took their toll and the large population and high death-rate, particularly of
infants, made the provision of a large new burial ground imperative. The Wardens of the
Collegiate Church found the answer in 1816 in a plot of land on the far side of the River
Irk called Walkers Croft. Walkers Croft had, in earlier centuries, been the location of
works for the fulling of woollen cloth, a process known as ‘walking’ and as such the
origin of the surname Walker. By the 19th century, however, the land appears to have
been in use as agricultural smallholdings. The rectangular plot was purchased and
enclosed and a small mortuary chapel erected at its centre. The plot lay conveniently
alongside the Manchester Workhouse, which would be the source of many of its future
occupants, and, indeed, there was a gate from the workhouse yard directly into the burial
ground.
Walkers Croft served as the parish burial ground for the next three decades during
which the registers record around 40,000 burials. It was not, however, exhaustion of
capacity which led to its final closure, but the transport revolution. The new Manchester
to Leeds Railway was to run into the new Victoria Station, which had been built partly
on former workhouse land. To bring the line into the station required it to cross Walkers
Croft. Following a Parliamentary enquiry and appropriate legislation, the plot was sold
to the railway company in 1836 for some £13,000. The tracks were laid across the
northern edge of the graveyard without the need to disturb the existing graves and the
extent of the incursion can be clearly seen by comparing maps drawn immediately before
and after the event. Despite the sale, burials continued in the remaining portion for a
further 12 years until the final interment took place in 1848. Some time later, the station
was extended across the remainder of the site, again without removing the remains. The
present Metrolink platform lies directly over the old graveyard.
Manchester Genealogist Volume 44, No 1, 2008
