Peeling back the layers

Salford University Archaeology are undertaking an archaeological investigation for developer Renaker.

This area has been a surface car park for decades. But underneath the surface lie up to 30,000 bodies, and the site of one of Salford’s most historically interesting churches. The Bible Christian church founded by William Cowherd in 1800.

The Salford Bible Christians were vegetarians and teetotallers. Radically for the time the poor were buried here at no charge. They believed in education (a Sunday school sat by the church). Cowherds successor William Brotherton entered the political sphere becoming Salford’s first MP, and carried their radical ideas forward. He campaigned for municipal cemeteries, state education, and free libraries ( which is why Salford had the first in the country). He was a pacifist, standing out against the Crimean war. And his wife wrote the world’s first vegetarian cook book. The vegetarian society emerged from the Bible Christians, whilst the group that emigrated to Philadelphia took their ideas with them, founding the US vegetarian movement.

Underneath the church the archaeologists have found medieval pottery, 17th century clay pipes, and an unused musket ball - probably from 1642 when there was a civil war skirmish around the bridge linking Manchester (parliamentarian) and Salford (royalist).

The site of the graveyard and church will be covered over to form part of a larger park. That will take some time to deliver, but it is important for future residents that they have some good quality open space.

These gravestones largely date from the first two decades or so of the 19th century when Salford and Manchester were rapidly industrialising. A lot of the manufacturing industry has now disappeared, the people in the new apartments will largely work in the service economy these days.