Graves to be cleared for housing

Several graves as much as 250 years old are to be dug up to make way for new housing in Herefordshire.

The Harper Group, a firm of Birmingham-based developers, is planning to build 12 houses on a former Quaker burial ground in Bromyard.

The project at the site at Pump Street will require the digging up of an unknown quantity of remains.

The area in question is only 10 metres by four, but it is thought that the oldest graves could date back to 1760.

Herefordshire Council has already granted planning permission for the project.

Because of strict regulations governing building on graveyards, the developers are now asking for people to come forward if they do not want a relative's grave to be disturbed.

However it is thought that the graveyard has not been used for a number of years.

The last recorded meeting in Bromyard of the Quakers, also known as the Religious Society of Friends, was in the 1930s.