This page is about the old graveyard at Rowland's Methodist Church in Summerseat.

Unfortunately this graveyard is officially closed, and it has not been possible to enter this graveyard for many years now, this is due to the ground and also some of the large headstones being very unstable,

and also as can be seen in the above photo, it is really overgrown to the extent that it is not possible to enter.

The old graveyard was officially closed by the Health and Safety, due to the dangerous condition.

I contacted the Methodist Church Council regarding having the old graveyard renovated, so as we may once more visit the final resting places of our dear family ancestors to pay our respects.

I did much research into what grants were available to help with the project of renovating the old graveyard, as well as offering to oversee the work and to work together with the Church Council and the Health and Safety. After being in contact with the Church Council for two years and having passed on the information that I had gathered to obtain grants, etc. I became very despondent at things just staying at the same position as they were two years previous, and I do not believe that the Church Council had even applied for any of the grants. With my disability problems and worsening health condition, I have decided to abandon my efforts, this is such a shame after all the work I had done in trying to get the old graveyard in a nice condition once more.

Here is an extract from the last email I received from the Methodist Church Council back in April 2007:

 I do feel that the church could have tried to do something, as it has now been three years since I first started on my quest of trying to get the old graveyard sorted out.

I am pleased to say though, that I have been in contact recently with somebody else who has an interest in the old lower graveyard at Rowlands Methodist Church, Summerseat, Lancashire, and he has setup a "Friends of Rowlands Lower Graveyard, Summerseat, Lancashire" email group which you can join by sending an email to:

 rowlands-subscribe@topica.com 

If you have an interest in the old lower graveyard at Rowlands, and would dearly love to see it restored so as we can once again visit the graves of our dear ancestors, then I would ask that you join this group which is run by James, who intends to take over my mission and try to get something done regarding the condition of the old graveyard.

Even though the graveyard is in such a terrible condition, I have great pleasure in being able to list many photos, which have been sent to me by someone who has really gone out of their way to assist many of us that are researching our ancestors from Summerseat, as we are now able to see many of the headstones that are in the old graveyard, I have placed 30 grave photos in each of the galleries. I do really hope that you find these great photos of interest, and I am sure that you are as grateful as I am to the wonderful thoughts of the person who has taken the time to sort these out for me to show on this web site. This is not a full list of the graves, as unfortunately, some of the headstones have fallen over, and the inscriptions are face down, and so it is not possible to collect a full photo history of the old graveyard.

There are now 95 graves listed in the Headstone Photo Galleries.

[ Headstone Gallery 1 ] - [ Headstone Gallery 2 ] - [ Headstone Gallery 3 ]