During the industrial revolution the population of this area exploded, church graveyards were unable to cope. In 1866, to meet pressing needs, the towns of Ashton-under-Lyne in Lancashire, and Dukinfield, just across the county boundary in Cheshire, opened a joint municipal cemetery.

Over 130 years later Dukinfield Cemetery is still in use. This vast cemetery with its many thousands of graves lies on a rounded hillside overlooking the valley of the River Tame. In the valley bottom are mills and terraced housing which brought wealth to the area in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The entrance to the cemetery is just off Crescent Road, Dukinfield.