St Saviours Church

Monday 20^th September

Plymouth House, 1 Plymouth Grove, Manchester M13 9PZ

I had had a very lazy day off and decided to go for a walk in the evening to shake off the cobwebs, but kept it very local. I had always wondered about a graveyard that looked like there used to be a church there, but was just a graveyard now. I decided to check it out, it was only about 10 minutes from my house.

Apparently it called Southern Manchester cemetery, not to be confused with Manchester Southern cemetery in Chorlton. It was nice to find a small plot of land that felt historic and mysterious in the middle of a built up area. The gravestones that I could see were from the 19^th century and there was a grassy mound in the centre of the area with steps, which is why I thought a church used to be there.

When I decided to go back, I passed through a small but very pretty field where the path was line with beautiful flowers. It’s the kind of path that I’ve tried to explore before, because it looks like it goes somewhere interesting. It doesn’t, really! But it can be accessed from Kincardine road.

I was amused to observe some rowdy campers with a tent and a fire in the field on a Monday evening! I have no idea why they were there or how legal it was but they sounded like they were having fun.

The walk only took me about 30 minutes maximum, and was 1.12 km (0.7 miles). I recorded the route on OS maps, titled unnamed graveyard.

I also did a bit of digging because it felt like there was a mystery here that needed to be unearthed.

It took a while for me to discover but there did used to be a church here called St Saviours Church! It was an Anglican parish church that was consecrated in 1836 and could seat up to 1700 members. During the time of St Saviours there were some changes in the parish. In 1868, part of the parish was assigned to St John Chrysostom, there is a school in the area called St Chrysostom’s so I assume it was named after the same man! The church was demolished in 1964 and in 1971, the remaining members followed St Luke. A new church did replace the old one in the same spot, but this was soon demolished in 1974.

I was surprised that I could find any information on the history of the local area, but I have included the links of websites that provided it at the bottom.