page_title: St Mary's Church, Handsworth
section_title: Plans to end the neglect of the Churchyard
hierarchical_section_title: St Mary's Church, Handsworth / Plans to end the neglect of the Churchyard
caption_attribution_description: English: Bust of Matthew Boulton inside St.Mary's Church, Handsworth, Birmingham Sibadd 19:54, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
context_page_description: St Mary's Church, Handsworth, also known as Handsworth Old Church, is a Grade II* listed Anglican church in Handsworth, Birmingham, England. Its ten-acre grounds are contiguous with Handsworth Park. It lies just off the Birmingham Outer Circle, and south of a cutting housing the site of the former Handsworth Wood railway station. It is noteworthy as the resting place of famous progenitors of the industrial age, and has been described as "the cathedral of the Industrial Revolution".
context_section_description: Since the 1970s, St Mary's churchyard has bordered on dereliction. It is a closed graveyard, with the apparently empty spaces to the south of the graveyard harbouring the final resting places of numerous paupers whose names are recorded in the Church Register but whose remains were interred without coffins or visible memorials, beyond the unevenness of the overgrown ground above them. The condition of the churchyard-—as a place that feels unsafe to some, whose memorials have become inaccessible to many, their inscriptions overgrown with ivy, headstones broken, unstable or unreachable through the surrounding undergrowth—-is recognised as a reproach to all who know the place. Even so, to those who enter the lime avenues long being kept clear of encroaching undergrowth, this wilderness contains mystery and beauty as well as melancholy. It is intended that planned improvements in the accessibility and appearance of the graveyard will be ones that restore it to respect in Handsworth, without lessening its serenity or its qualities as a haven for wildlife next to Handsworth Park. It is intended it should become a safer place, a more attractive place and a place of education for visitors of all ages. To this end there has been a marked increase in voluntary work in the graveyard while local community leaders have voted neighbourhood renewal funds that they hope will be matched by other regional agencies to implement a plan drawn up by the City Council's Landscape Practice Group to end years of neglect and bring about a rejuvenation similar to the great improvements they have funded in the neighbouring park between 2000 and 2006.
  St Mary's then incumbent was Canon Brian A. Hall who in March 2006 became chairman of a new group called The Friends of St Mary's Churchyard, which aimed "to be a focus for future hopes for the integrity of St Mary's Churchyard as a special place" – special not only for the respect accorded to the dead which ought to apply to all graveyards, but also because of the association of the church and its grounds with the founding fathers of the industrial age, and more recently with two important figures in the development of football, William McGregor, Director of Aston Villa F.C., who organised the founding meeting of the Football League on 22 March 1888, and George Ramsay, whose headstone reads "Founder of Aston Villa".
caption: Matthew Boulton
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