Local cemeteries

There are three cemeteries in the Bury borough:

• Bury Cemetery, St Peter's Road, Bury, BL9 9RL
• Radcliffe Cemetery, Cemetery Road, Radcliffe, M26 4EU
• Ramsbottom Cemetery, Cemetery Road, Ramsbottom, BL0 9PU.

Bury Cemetery provides for burials of various religious groups. There are separate areas for Jewish and Muslim communities, babies, and young children and for burying ashes.

Ramsbottom Cemetery is our smallest cemetery and provides for different religious groups and have separate areas for ashes, and for babies and young children.

Radcliffe Cemetery has an area set aside for green burials and an ashes plot. Green burials are where a tree is planted instead of laying a headstone and environmentally friendly coffins can also be used.

If you have any questions or comments about a cemetery, please contact the Cemetery Office. 

Cemetery opening times

You may visit a cemetery on foot at any time.

If visiting a cemetery by vehicle, you can enter during these opening times:

• Bury Cemetery and Radcliffe Cemetery:
  • Summer week days: 8am until dusk
  • Summer weekends: 9am until dusk
  • Winter week days: 8am until 5pm
  • Winter weekends: 9am until dusk
• Ramsbottom Cemetery:
  • Summer week days: 8am until dusk
  • Summer weekends: closed
  • Winter week days: 8am until 5pm
  • Winter weekends: closed

Cemetery safety

All headstones are the responsibility of the grave owners.

We remain responsible for safety in our cemeteries and we check each headstone once every five years. This work is carried out by trained officers and headstones that are unsafe are carefully laid down. We must do this because elsewhere it has been known for people to be injured or even killed by headstones toppling over. 

Cemetery records

Bury Cemetery records date back to 1869, Radcliffe Cemetery records date back to 1906 and Ramsbottom Cemetery records date back to 1872.

We receive many requests to search burial records and we're in the process of digitising these cemetery records. You may request a record search online, but please try to provide as much information as you can, such as:

• location of cemetery (Bury, Ramsbottom or Radcliffe)
• name of deceased
• date of birth of deceased
• date of death
• gender of deceased
• Funeral Director
• cemetery section (for example; Church of England, non-conformist or Roman Catholic)
• grave reference number
• your name, address, phone number or email.

A standard cemetery record search fee will apply if researching your request takes more than half an hour.