St. Mary's Church

Honley title banner

 

Contents

Photographs of the Cemetery

1811 Census of Honley

1906 Map of Honley

1906 Map of NW Honley

1906 Map of Brockholes

Chapel Inscriptions

Garden of Rest

Burial Book Entries

Email Comments

 

      When I started this Website a few years ago it was to help those living outside Yorkshire with their family history research, the pages contained an indexed list of Surnames of those buried in the cemetery.

Over the years it has been extended and now, in addition to the Memorial Inscriptions the pages contain the 1811 Census of Honley (few 1811 census copies exist for England), 1906 maps of the village (other older maps will be added later), the Garden of Rest memorials in the cemetery to those that were cremated, inscriptions that remain from the Chapels of Honley and the Burial Book.

The Burial Book was put on to microfische in 1999 and contains over 8000 names, as the remaining headstones in the cemetery only generate 3000 names the missing 5000 are contained in the Book. The years 1857 to 1935 have been transcribed and are now on this site.

The Future. First, the past. The reason for recording the inscriptions at Honley Cemetery was the possibility of its disappearance. The Church felt unable to maintain it due to its size and also the dangerous condition of certain areas, it is a large cemetery for a village (township) being almost 4 acres and contains a mortuary chapel (with pews) which is very rare.

The church would like the local municipal authority to have responsibility for its upkeep but the problem with this, is that when they get tired of the expense, after a period of 10 (?) years they can dispose of it and redevelop the land; so many of my ancestors are buried there that recording the inscriptions became the priority.

The cemetery is in a beautiful setting, the surrounding trees abound with Woodpeckers in the spring, an oasis in the industrial heartland of Yorkshire and worth a visit. (The Last of Summer Wine series was filmed in this area).

The work of recording the inscriptions has been done by myself Glynn Burhouse, Rita Walker and (the late) Alan Broadbent (both of Honley). I was born in the village and my ancestors arrived there around 1740 probably from Ireland (Weavers, Clothiers, Mill Owners and Bakers)

Copyright of this website is held by the author Glynn Burhouse

 

Update 1st July 2013.

The old website provider has gone out of business but thanks to RootsWeb the pages can be seen again.

There is still a little tidying up to do with the presentation on the pages but the content is unchanged.

Please do not steal pages from this website and put them on yours as some have done. There are plenty of other cemeteries awaiting transcription.