Mass Grave in Old Swan

[hmtmaj]

Pete E, you are right to be scratching your head... but I have a sneaking suspicion you are right, theat we are looking at the wrong school.

I don't mean to pour doubt on your truthfulness hmtmaj, but childhood memory is a notoriously fickle thing.

If we look at the 1981 Ben Travers article, previously posted there are a few clues that support Pete E...

1. The lead photo seems to show the church some distance from the school... behind quite a lot of trees. Now if you look on the modern googlemap below, you can see where the 'BLUE' school is there are few trees that side of the church. On the other side, where Pete E is speaking about there are many trees and I imagine would give a photo like the one in the article.

But of course, trees can be cut down... so here is some more evidence.

2. Father Patrick James McCartney, parish priest in 1973 is said to have noticed the burials "at the bottom of the garden". We know that the church was surrounded by a graveyard (hardly going to be called a 'garden') and the area where the BLUE school is was already built on... this leads to the conclusion that the priest is talking about the garden to the presbetry, on the rear left hand side of the church and with an extensive garden over the old "Burial Ground (dis.)".

3. The article then goes on to say "three feet beneath St Oswalds scrubland". Hardly what you would call the land where 'Percival Street' was. Scrubland is a weird phrase to use really, on the post-1906 OS map there is an area of trees to the south of the church/presbetry... but would that be scrubland? And even stranger... there was no burial ground marked there...
I suspect that the reporter was getting confused between scrub and garden but still...

The final proof... for me at least is what happens when I map the new Junior School site onto the post-1906 OS map.



The school building covers half of the disused burial ground.

I've convinced myself... but if anyone has any other ideas or can see flaws in my argument i'd love to hear them.

Now you know me, I'm a lover not a fighter but ....

The school, in Blue, on the left, over the burial ground, was built in the late 80's early 90's as the "Old School" on your map, just to the right, wasn't demolished until the mid 80's ( this is the school I went to ) the Junior School.

The School in Blue ( to the right on your map ) is the place in question.
Percival St and the other hosues, along with the Ropers Arms pub, all stood where they are on your map but were demolished late 60's early 70's. The scrubland was where these houses were.


I'm sorry to disappoint you but I was at the school, knew people who lived in the flats ( where Tesco's is ) and could see over the fence, to where they were building.


St. Oswald's Junior School appears on your map just below the church.
St. Oswald's infants School was in what became the Montini Youth club, next to the Wesleyan Chapel ( later St. Oswald's club ) on St. Oswald's st.
I went to both of them up until leaving in 1973.

Then...
The "new" school was started, on the scrubland, where Percival St WAS,
alongside the church in St. Oswalds St.
They then demolished the "Old" school, in montague rd, below the church on your map, then they build the "newer" school", on Montague Rd, next to the burial grounds.
This was the order they done it in.
They have 2 new schools, one built in the 70's and one late 80's.
The one built in the late 70's is the one where the mass graves were found.

Hope this clears things up a bit and we still don't know where they came from

[fortinian]

The mystery deepens! Thanks for clearing that up. You see, I only have pieces of paper to go on a very little specific knowledge of the area.

I'm kinda glad you opened this up again, though it does prove troublesome.

I can farily safely say now that I don't think we will ever find out where they came from. I will descend into the Record Office soon and rip apart every bloody thing they have on the church and the schools.

This has really got me going now!

[hmtmaj]

Cheers

Martin

[Spike]

This is a great thread

[edwardo]

Interesting.Please dont let this peter out.

[Pete E]

Sorry to disagree with you hmtmaj but I m still convinced that the "mass grave" was at the junction of Mill lane & Montague road.
The quote mentioned in an earlier post said that Fr.McCartney said the graves where "at the bottom of the garden".
The "summer fete's" were always held in the priest's garden, which was between the presbetry and Mill lane.
If the site of the grave had been where Percival street once stood, then surely it would have been unearthed when the foundtion's for the houses & the ropers arms were being dug out. I'm not 100% sure, but I think most houses of that era had celler's. At the very least the pub would of had one.

[burkhilly]

Father McCartney and those summer fetes - I remember them well. Father McCartney was always lovely......He wore a beret, and always seems to have bicycle clips on his trousers. His grave is to the right of the church.

I always thought the mass grave was in the grounds of the new Infants School.

[JMLE]

I can confirm that the mass grave was definately on the site of the current Saint Oswald's Infant school. My sister lived in Pemberton Road at the time and I used to go up to have a nose through the fence (as kids do).

[hmtmaj]

I always thought the mass grave was in the grounds of the new Infants School.

Burkhilly, JMLE, thanks for the vote of confidence.
I know for a fact the mass graves were on the site of Percival st and below ( if you look at the map previous). It was wasteland for a couple of years, I used to play on it

IF, you go to Tesco's and look towards the school, the mass graves were there, NOT the "new" school built on Montague Rd, as this replaced the older one, half way up Montague rd, demolished mid to late 80's.

Martin.

[Pete E]

Just as I was begining to doubt my self, I came up with an inspirational idea! (and I don't have too many of those).
I have just been on the phone to the current Head Mistress of St.Oswald's junior school, who confirmed that it was her school which was built on the "mass grave" site!
Pete.

[JMLE]

I could stand to be corrected as it gives more in depth information on http://www.stoswaldoldswan.org.uk/history.htm. I do remember going up to St Oswald Street though to satisfy my young morbid curiosity. How is Miss Jones nowadays? She was starting to struggle after her heart problems and onset of MS when my daughter left in 2007.

[hmtmaj]

It was opposite the flats, I'm sure there's a photo somewhere, I'll have to get digging

[JMLE]

I'm pretty sure too Mart', but the facts are stacking against us.

[hmtmaj]

Here's some more info:

http://liverpool-schools.co.uk/html/st_oswald_s.html

Quote:
"Workmen were demolishing houses for the site of the new infants? school when they found 3,561 unmarked coffins were buried there, stacked sixteen feet deep. "

I'm still digging

Mart

[fortinian]

Forgive my naturally sceptical nature but unless I have proof myself I trust very few modern histories of Liverpool as like I have said before, most 'Histories of Liverpool' are built on nothing but 'Histories of Liverpool'. Basically, because someone wrote it down and got it published it is taken at face value.

I understand that those people are not doing it on purpose or out of malice... just that they have been misinformed and don't have the time/resources to do research. I'm very lucky that I have both of the above.

There are things in this case which do not stack up. From the documentary evidence I will put my money on Pete E's belief than hmtmajs.

Memory is a notorious thing to rely on. You've probably read numerous accounts of these graves being found (not least by Keith Andrews and his sidekick Muttley, sorry, Slemen.) and this has influenced your belief. Indeed, until I started looking at this thread I didn't even know that there was a Junior School behind the Church, I thought the entire St Oswalds school was the one fronting St Oswalds street!