Thank you for publishing this

I'm going to recheck for some of my "tree" - horrified

Keen to know when the Solicitors are open for business - Jan 4th at a guess :-(

The sale will be subject to the provisions of the Disused Burial Grounds (Amendment) Act 1981. This means that it will then be the responsibility of the buyer to maintain the burial ground and to ensure that all legal requirements are complied with. This includes making facilities available for family members and others to visit the burial ground, usually on prior notice. The purchaser should be bound by covenant to allow access to the public on notice.

When the burial ground is being sold the sale will often be the subject of numerous specific covenants or premises both positive and negative binding on the new owner to try and ensure that people are still able to visit the graves, that the grounds are maintained, and the legal framework in the Disused Burial Grounds (Amendment) Act 1981 is followed and memorials are not wilfully and inappropriately damaged.

Building work can, however, be undertaken if a disused burial ground is acquired by a Local Authority and planning permission has been granted for the development. It is not necessary for the development to be used by the Local Authority.

Building work can also be undertaken on a disused burial ground if the procedures set out in the Disused Burial Grounds (Amendment) Act 1981 are followed. This involves notices and advertisements similar to that described above in connection with moving headstones. The Department for Constitutional Affairs and Commonwealth War Graves Commission should be informed of plans at an early stage.

Burial grounds can only be developed for purposes other than a church extension where the burial ground has never been used for human burials or where no relative or personal representative of the deceased buried on the grounds objects to the development.

Where building work that will disturb human remains is to be carried out, all remains MUST be exhumed and re-interred, whether or not relatives have come forward. The church must pay for this and the process is expensive.

The church or any owner of the burial ground cannot begin to erect any building on the burial ground until the human remains have been removed and the headstones and memorials removed in accordance with the necessary procedures described below, please see the section on Removing Human Remains.
Guidance notes are also available from the Department for Constitutional Affairs (telephone 0207 210 0036).

It is an offence to remove or to disturb human remains without complying with appropriate procedures.

Removal of human remains from a graveyard will require a licence and this must be obtained before work begins from the Department for Constitutional Affairs, Coroners Unit, 5th Floor, Steel House, 11 Tothill Street, London, SW1H 9LH, telephone 0207 210 0036, fax 0870 739 5849 or email general.enquiries@dca.gsi.gov.uk.

In 2007 (?) the Coroners division was tranferred to the MoJ

Coroners Division,
Ministry of Justice,
5th Floor, Steel House,
11 Tothill Street,
London
SW1H 9LH

Phone: 020 7210 0049 / 0066
Fax: 0870 739 5849

http://www.justice.gov.uk/index.htm

and specific notes re Burials
http://www.justice.gov.uk/guidance/burials.htm

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Ἀριστοτέλης A Gloster & Hereford Boy in the Forest of Dean ><((((*>

Is there a list please of all the people buried there so that we can check it against our family trees? I am very concerned that this should happen. I live in a city where a church became a community centre a couple of decades ago, the grave stones were laid flat, cars now drive over them and park on them and the consequence is that they are not longer legible!

Another house was licensed for the mission in 1782 and a chapel was built in the village in 1798. During the ministry of John Horlick, 1801-51, who also served Mitcheldean, the congregation grew; in 1804 a gallery was erected in the chapel and in 1813 the building was enlarged. Horlick, who in 1808 registered a collier's house for worship, claimed an average congregation of 130 for the chapel in 1851. The meeting, later called Congregational, had 25 members in 1900. The chapel closed after 1960 and was used as a carpenter's store and was in disrepair in the late 1980s.

http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=23261

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Planning Application Search

Location: The Old Chapel The Square Ruardean Gloucestershire GL17 9TJ

Development: Alterations and conversion of existing chapel to create a dwelling and ancillary self contained granny flat. Construction of new vehicular access. (Revised scheme).

http://www.fdean.gov.uk/nqcontent.cfm?a_id=6918&tt=graphic&externalurl=planning...

As this 2007 Planning Application was refused, there probably was a revised application submitted later but I'm unable to locate any reference to it.

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Many of my own Watkins extended family attended the Congregational Chapel

Ruardean Organist for 36 Years

Hello
Is there a possibility of emailing the office of David Barry or getting a list of the named tombstones?

As I live in NZ it is a bit tricky.

Thanks
Rita

Reproduced from This is Gloucestershire Newspaper, Thursday, April 29, 2010

The gravestones of the Forest's famous Horlick family could be destroyed unless they can be relocated.

The Diocese of Gloucester will decide on the fate of seven headstones - including relatives of malted milk pioneers the Horlick family - which stand in the grounds of the old non-conformist chapel in Ruardean.

Reg and Robert Duberley, who own the former Congregational Union Church, want to redevelop the site - including the graveyard.

District councillor and historian Andrew Gardiner wants to save any stones that remain intact by moving them to St John the Baptist Church in Ruardean.

He said: "There are about 20-30 stones and about seven are still in reasonable condition for moving.

"I think it's important that our history isn't lost."

Andrew found out about the stones through a legal notice placed in The Forester on Christmas Eve last year. It called for any families with relatives buried at the old chapel to come forward.

No one replied to the notice and several months of research by Mr Gardiner has failed to turn up any living family members.

One of the names is that of Pastor John Horlick - a relation of the malted milk inventors William and James Horlick.

Together with parish priest the Rev Nick Bromfield, Andrew has now applied to have the headstones moved to a new part of the cemetery at St John's.

Mr Bromfield said: "We can't move the remains but we have asked if we can move the headstones in order to preserve them.

"I think it's a great idea but we have to go through a formal process with the diocese."

A decision is expected in the next few weeks but it is thought to be one of the first applications of its type in the Dean.

The non-conformists began as an off-shoot of the Anglican church and the chapel in Ruardean was built in 1798.

The chapel ceased to be a place of worship in the 1970s.

Some of the stones in the graveyard are more than 150-years-old.

Mr Bromfield said that he thought that even though the people who were buried weren't members of the Church of England they would be satisfied with the solution.

He said: "I hope that they would be happy that the gravestones will at least be kept on holy ground."

Reg Duberley who owns the Chapel site said he was supportive of any attempt to save the stones.

Many thanks to Simon, alias 'forest', for bringing this article to our attention.