'I've got a 200-year-old grave in my back garden - I don't find it creepy at all!'

When Bob Sutton bought his 'two up-two down' cottage 25 years ago, one of the attractions was its amazing history.

In 1999 Bob and his partner Nubia paid the princely sum of £47,500 for Waterfall Cottage. In front of their home is Roughlee's iconic waterfall - but it is what's behind their cottage which makes it truly unique, LancsLive reports.

A blue plaque fixed to the 370-year-old stonework of Bob's house explains why the events of August 25 in 1748 placed his cottage firmly in the history books. The plaque, installed by Burnley and Pendle Methodist Circuit to mark the Methodist Heritage Trail, reads: "Whilst preaching near here in Roughlee, John Wesley was chased by a hostile mob, taking refuge in Barrowford. A Methodist chapel was built behind these cottages in 1823, the graveyard of which can still be seen."

READ NEXT: Body of man, 21, found as emergency crews descend on scene

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, is said to have preached 40,000 sermons and travelled 250,000 miles including his visit to Roughlee. As Wesley wrote in his journal of that day in 1748: "I had about half finished my discourse, when the mob came pouring down the hill like a torrent."

Later in the day, when asked by the leaders of the mob to promise never to preach at Roughlee again, Wesley answered: "I would sooner cut off my own hand than make any such promise."

The Wesleyan Methodist Chapel itself was demolished in 1976 but the bodies of 92 people remain buried under the back gardens of the six former weavers' cottages. But for the blue plaque, their existence would be unknown, but in Bob's garden two ornate headstones - one surrounded by decorative iron railings - remain.

One of the marked graves holds the remains of 29-year-old Mary Holgate, the wife of Henry, who died on February 16 in 1874. Mary died in childbirth and although the headstone makes no reference to her child Bob discovered what happened to them.

"I have a full inventory of everyone who was buried here and although the gravestone doesn't say it, her baby was buried with her, the child died too," Bob said.

Having bodies buried just inches from his back door "isn't creepy at all" to Bob who has found researching the names of those interred on his property fascinating. "Sometimes people come along looking into their family history and I've been able to help them," he added.

"Once a year Methodists from the Pendle area meet here in the garden to sing hymns. They ask permission obviously, and although some people here might think it's strange, I'm happy to let them do it."