A RELATIVE of a former Calderstones hospital patient has flown more than 5,000 miles to visit a long-lost family grave.

Constance Evelyn Clements, the great aunt of David Brierley-Green from the US, died at the hospital in 1924 at the age of 21.

She was buried in the old graveyard in Whalley off Mitton Road. However the grave site was lost when the area was sold and the headstones removed by a previous owner.

The exact positions of more than 1,000 patients’ graves are still unknown and the graveyard has become overgrown following decades of neglect.

After researching his family history, David contacted Whalley resident Mel Diack to help track down the plot.

Mel and his neighbour George Hardman, restored the grave site ahead of the visit after information was unearthed at the Lancashire Archives.

David, 75, was born in Manchester and emigrated to Canada in 1974 before moving to America and retiring to Prineville, Oregon.

David said: “It all started when I was looking into my family history and trying to go back as far as I could.

“I knew about having a young girl in the family who had died but the family never spoke about it very much.

“When I was researching into birth certificates I came across the fact that she had died at Calderstones. That’s when I rang Mel because I had seen that he had helped someone else.

“I can’t thank Mel and George enough and they are both first class people.”

Last year they helped Sandra McArdle from Australia track down the grave of her aunt who died at Calderstones in the 1920s.

Mel said: “I’m delighted that we have been able help a relative of a lost soul again. It’s a national disgrace, that the site is still in a poor condition.”