St Johns Churh Bolton Rd the Height. Missing Gravestones

[GeoffRyan]

When I first started my family history search in the 1990s I used various FH Sites/Forums and on one someone wrote that in the late 1960s/early 1970s the River Irwell was Diverted and the loop at the top St Simon Steet cut out, whilst this work was taking place a large number of grave stones were found in the river and that they all came from St Johns Churh Bolton Rd the Height,Salford. not realising at that time how many of my  relatives are buried there.
After many online searches I cannot find which forum it was or anything online related to the removal of the grave stones.
Can anyone help, What I would like to know is were records of the stones taken after finding them or any photos taken and who autherised the  removal

Geoff

[andrewalston]

The obvious place for the stones to have originated was St. Simon's church itself. It was founded in 1846 and closed in 1926. The 1933 map shows an empty space.

Genuki shows it as having no graveyard though. It looks like there was space for one, but it was soon built over.

St. John the Evangelist at Pendlebury seems to have its original churchyard boundaries, but the area nearest to the building appears to have been cleared completely. The church is nowhere near the river, so no possibility of stones being washed down the Irwell about 5 miles.

Could the report you remember have been about the use of these monuments for hardcore? There would be little need for extra material in the St. Simon area before the redirection work.

[mazi]

Similar post from 2015 with linl to a tv program

http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=714959.0

One of the busby babes was buried at St. John’s Irlam o’ the heights

Mike