Muir Street Burial Grounds,
Hamilton,Lanarkshire, Scotland
On the 7th of August 1865 my Great Great Grand Father Peter Strachan purchased a burial plot in the old Relief Congregation Church Hamilton (possibly by that time called the Reformed Presbyterian Church) burial ground.
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The First Relief Congregational Church (United Presbyterian) became the Muir Street Relief Church and then became Auchingramont Church, before the congregation moved away, presumably in the first half of the 20th century
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Why he purchased this has always been a mystery, until now.
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Peters mother had re-married by this time and all of the family were living in a house on Church Street, Hamilton.
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On the 5th of August 1865 Peter's step father Robert Martin died and it was for his body that Peter bought the burial plot.
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The tale now takes a twist.
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This ancient cemetery lay next to Hamilton Town Hall and almost 100 years later, in March 1963 the local council decided this land would be needed for other purposes. It was proposed by the council that the body's would be exhumed and moved to the Bent Cemetery, where sadly they were placed in a communal unmarked grave.
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In the photos you can see the original plot plan showing everyone who owned a lair. I've highlighted Peter Strachan's Plot.
Also original notes from the council meeting explaining how the bodies would be exhumed.
An article from a local newspaper showing a photograph of the old cemetery.
An article from the 'Hamilton Advertiser' newspaper reporting on the towns people's discovery of a body snatching scam similar to Burke and Hare's in Edinburgh, their efforts to prevent it and finally the destruction of the cemetery and the removal of 2000 bodies to a mass grave at the Bent Cemetery.
One thing the article got wrong was the list of people reinterred at the Bent Cemetery - The original list was of the people who owned the lairs, not necessarily who was buried within them.
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The former Burial Ground was located behind a large stone wall next to Fore Row, just off Muir Street, Hamilton. Across the road from the burial ground stands the old Auction House. The building is a former church, designed to hold seats for 1050 worshippers. The First Relief Congregational Church (United Presbyterian) owned the land down to the corner of Lower Auchingramont Road and Muir Street. Its burial ground contained over 300 graves. The church was founded in 1776 and funded by public subscription. A sum of £89 was raised, enough to erect a substantial stone building for its congregation. Although officially known as the First Relief Congregational Church, that was too much of a mouthful for the good folk of Hamilton and it became known simply as the Muir Street Relief.
Later the congregation moved up to premises in Brandon Street, afterwards merging with St James Congregational Church in Auchingramont Road. The church was closed in 1966.
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The original council plans fell through. The planned summer garden never materialized and the site is now a car park for the Library & Town House and is directly behind the building, accessed via a sharp right off Lower Auchingramont Road.
Today there is no physical evidence that the cemetery existed except a plaque embedded into the stone wall of the car park which reads
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John Thomson
and
Ann Watson
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A stone was erected in the Bent Cemetery in 1964 in remembrance of all the people taken from Muir Street and reburied there.
