A seemingly ordinary Tesco store in Manchester is built on an eerie and chilling site of an old graveyard – the final resting place for over 20,000 people. Dating back to the haunting turns of a horror flick, the decision to construct a state-of-the-art shopping complex on a deserted burial ground sparked fright amongst many families at the dawn of the 2000s.
Cheetham Hill’s Wesleyan Cemetery, established in 1815, was once the gravesite for affluent merchants residing in North Manchester. The graveyard closed its gate against new burials in 1968 after accommodating more than 20,000 deceased souls.
Once the cemetery seized operations it fell into disarray, overrun by nature as it loomed forgotten and isolated until the council claimed it in 1973. Les Leggett, providing an eyewitness account on the website Interment history, recollected his memories from living near the cemetery gates.
Mr Leggett said: “In one area of the cemetery there was a mixture of huge fancy memorial stones at the graves of the wealthy, in another there were rows of five foot high stones which were so close together they seemed to form roofless tunnels, and in another area the headstones had been laid flat over the graves after the burials.”
Regeneration plans for this part of Cheetham Hil were around since the mid-90s. Moreover, in the early years of the 2000s, a £20 million redevelopment deal involved selling the land to property developers to modernise the Cheetham Hill shopping centre, reports the Manchester Evening News.
The proposal sparked outrage among residents at the time as they planned to exhume around 2,000 graves from an old cemetery and re-interred Bury cemetery, six miles away. The cleared site would then be repurposed as a car park for a new shopping complex.
The news left many locals furious and deeply distressed, particularly those with relatives buried in the cemetery.
Speaking to the Manchester Evening News back in June 2002, pensioner Walter Jones, a resident of nearby Seymour Road, expressed his disgust: “It’s appalling. The graveyard was owned by Manchester city council and the idea was to have it named a peace park at one time.
“We believe the dead should be left to rest in peace but the cemetery also forms part of the only green belt we have in this area.
“It’s a sanctuary for wildlife including foxes, hedgehogs and birds and it is valued by everybody who lives in the area.”
In response, North West Estates, the joint developers of the scheme to redevelop the shopping parade, stated they had followed the necessary planning and consultation process. They assured that the exhumation and re-interment of the remains would be handled sensitively.
In November 2002, several family members of those buried in the cemetery spoke out against the plans.
Among them was Marjorie Scriven, whose younger brother Brian was killed in a road accident in 1936, aged just four-and-a-half.
Her family owned the newsagent’s shop at the time in Crumpsall Lane. “My mother and father were in a terrible state,” she recalled. “My father only died last year, aged 102.
“I’m glad that he passed away not knowing what was proposed for his son’s grave.”
Her younger brother wasn’t her only family member buried in the cemetery.
Her nan and granddad were buried alongside Brian in the 1950s.
Meanwhile, in October 2002, it emerged that the families of the dead would face bills for thousands of pounds to avoid having their relatives’ remains placed in a mass grave.
Relatives were faced with having to pay around £3,000 for a second private burial.
Following negotiations Manchester city council proposed a compromise, giving relatives a choice of six sites instead of one to have their loved ones re-interred.
But some families still objected, claiming it merely created six “mini mass graves”.
Demolition of the graveyard and exhumation of the bodies began in 2003.
Mechanical diggers were on site, clearing the derelict cemetery and transferring the remains of 20,000 bodies to mass graves at Bury, Blackley and Southern cemeteries.
However, the family distress didn’t end there. In August 2003, contractors working in the cemetery unexpectedly found human remains on a rubbish dump.
A police investigation was launched following discoveries of bones at a landfill site at Beal Valley in the Heyside area of Oldham.
It’s believed that these remains were mistakenly collected with soil near the previous Wesleyan graveyard. They were consequently returned to specialist contractors for appropriate reburial, offering the respect promised to relatives.
Officials from Manchester Council worked tirelessly to locate around 250 people suspected of having relatives entombed in the cemetery.
Shockingly, 25 individuals who had failed to privately rebury their relatives received letters outlining the gruesome discovery.
Relatives burying individuals at the site received an apology from contractors later on.
An additional scandal rocked the development in 2004. After barriers toppled over, children reportedly stumbled upon bones – speculated to be humanoid – spread across the decommissioned graveyard.
The city council initiated an immediate inquiry and after several months, it concluded that the situation surrounding the discovery was “suspicious”.
Human bones were intermingled with animal remains, sparking concerns of potential saboteurs aiming to disrupt the development.
In a strange twist, investigations by specialists had previously determined that the human remains unearthed were from individuals who had passed away less than a decade ago, despite the graveyard having been closed for over three decades.
It would take several more years before construction of the new retail complex could commence. The hold-up, according to a spokesperson for the development company, was due to a protracted process in obtaining a compulsory purchase order for the property.
They explained that “a lot of work then had to go on before we could start above ground”.
Finally, in 2009, Tesco launched their round-the-clock outlet as a feature of the Cheetham Hill shopping centre’s transformation.
The Wesleyan cemetery, which had stood for almost two centuries, was no more, making way for an expansive parking area designed to accommodate the needs of the superstore’s clientele.
A select few of the cemetery’s Victorian tombstones were preserved, forming part of a commemorative garden situated adjacent to the supermarket.
