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Liverpool Echo
Liverpool Echo
National
Emilia Bona

There are 60,000 bodies buried under your feet in these city centre gardens

St James' Cemetery is often named among the most haunted places in the country - but it has a fascinating history that many people have never heard about.

While the history of St James' Mount and Gardens as a cemetery is clear to see, many visitors would never guess that there are actually 60,000 bodies buried under your feet in this city centre location.

The park still has a number of gravestones and tombs, some of which line the tunnel leading down from the Anglican Cathedral into the sunken gardens.

But these tombstones don't give away the entire history of the cemetery, which used to look very different.

The cemetery was originally a quarry, called Quarry Mount, the sandstone from which was used to build the dock walls and town hall.

By 1825 there was no stone left and the council decided to turn the quarry into a cemetery, based on the sprawling Pere-la-Chaise in Paris.

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Architect John Foster designed entrances, carriage ramps, and buildings, with landscaping works by John Shepherd who was curator of the Botanic Garden in Liverpool.

Some of these tunnels can still be seen today, including one that emerges at the junction of Rodney, St James and Duke Street, which is thought to have been used by hearse traffic.

Another remnant of the old cemetery which remain today are the catacombs in the East Wall, most of which were never used.

During the Victorian era the cemetery was being filled at the rate of up to eight burials a day, accounting for many of the tens of thousands of bodies which remain buried at the site.

Burials continued in the cemetery until July 1936, with 57,774 burials taking place before the old cemetery was considered full.

The cemetery was closed and subsequently fell into a state of disrepair, before a project to turn the area into a park was launched in the 1970s.

In the 1960s many gravestones were removed, the central area of the cemetery relandscaped, and the site renamed Cathedral Grounds

By 1972, this project had been completed, clearing out the vast majority of the gravestones and leaving behind only the few we still see today.

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While it's still clear to see the history of this part of the city centre, the changes and transformations of the space mean it's hard to imagine how different it once looked when it was in active use as a cemetery.

And despite the ongoing reminders in the form of remaining gravestones and tombs, it's hard to imagine there being nearly 60,000 bodies buried beneath.

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