The Wesleyan burial ground is 118 years old. The first interment was in 1813, the year after the old chapel was erected. The tombstone of a member of the Ekins family, “Thorpe House,” Raunds, can be seen today, sculptured with a weeping willow and the setting sun, in the Ekins row in the centre of the ground. Just before the present chapel was built in 1874, the Trustees secured some adjoining land, and enlarged it to double the size but is now practically closed. There is space for a few more years for Methodist adherents and family relations at the bottom of the new ground, south side of the path, to correspond with the other side, which is filled down to the back of the chapel. [extract from a 1932 report]
|