HISTORIANS are to survey 10,000 graves in Darwen in a bid to protect burial sites from future development.

The society will begin work this summer to create a definitive history of burial grounds in a bid to preserve historic graves such as the grave Darwen's last town crier George Nuttall, who died in 1896.

Jayne Waring, one of the two founders of the society, said that details would also, in years to come, be a reference point for developers to investigate if the land they are building on was a former cemetery in the town.

The group have decided to take the action following recent speculation that there could be still be a graveyard on the multimillion pound Darwen Academy site in the Redearth Triangle.

And comes after Blackburn with Darwen Council excavated hundreds of bodies in St Peter's Cemetery, Blackburn, last year when they discovered the graveyard whilst building a £4million dual carriageway connection to Feckleton Street Bridge.

Due to the size of the task the society is also calling on anyone who would like to take part to come forward.

There are more than 10 cemeteries in Darwen including Belgrave Independent Chapel, Hoddlesden Cemetery and Pole Lane Cemetery.

The survey results will be fed into a national database but Darwen Local History Society will keep a duplicate copy.

Jayne said: "We will be recording every single grave in every graveyard in Darwen. It is a big project but some haven't been cared for a certain length of time and they are under threat.

"The graves are important and need to be safeguarded. They are important to everybody and we may discover other local heroes as well as the ones we know about like Labour MP for Clitheroe David Shackleton who helped get the TUC, Trade Union Congress, up and running. He died in 1938 and is buried in Darwen Cemetery.

"We will record the names, the condition they are in, the plots, inscriptions and other details.

"There is a lot of history and 50, a 100 or even hundreds of years down the line developers can find out whether their proposed developments were former graveyards."

The history society is running a series of classes on how to survey graveyards, a class is taking place on Monday at Bridge Street Sport & Social Club, Former ICI club, at 7.15pm.

Anyone wishing to volunteer can contact Pauline Hodkinson on 01254 775707 or visit www.dlhs.co.uk.