Chowbent Chapel, Atherton in the County of -- Lancashire --

Burials at Chowbent Chapel
in the Parish of Atherton

The history and structure of the baptism registers of Chowbent Chapel is described in detail in the baptisms records page on this site. An exactly similar process was followed for the burial registers, and the contents of the first three registers were transcribed into a 4th Register Book before they were surrendered to the General Register Office in 1837. New burials were then added continuously in the 4th Register Book till June 1888.

In February 1857 the Atherton council closed all church-yard cemeteries, and opened a new municipal cemetery adjacent to Leigh Road. Exceptions were made for unfilled family graves, and burials continued, at a decreasing rate, till the last interment occurred at Chowbent Chapel on 18 June 1888.

The four registers of burials at Chowbent Chapel cover the following periods:

Twelve burials at the end of the 1st Register Book are duplicated at the start of the 2nd Register Book.

The burials transcribed from the first three registers into the 4th register are referred to as the Rewritten Register in the records on this site.

The first three registers are held by the Public Record Office (now National Archives PRO) at Kew, and were filmed by the LDS in 1968 (Film 560879). The 4th register is held at Chowbent Chapel and has never been filmed.

I thank the Rev. Peter Hughes, former Minister of Chowbent Unitarian Chapel, for the loan of a copy of the 4th Register Book of Burials, and permission to present the data on this Atherton Parish site.

Peter Wood
April 2005