BURIAL grounds home to more than remains and also the final resting place of legends.

Newtown's long abandoned St Mary's Church on the banks of the Severn River is one such place.

While famous as the resting place of social reformer Robert Owen, the old churchyard is also the site of the graves of three Newtonians whose lives - and deaths - merits their own stories.

The tale of Newtown's own Romeo and Juliet has sadly been all but long lost to time.

County Times: Graves at St Mary's Church in Newtown.Headstones at St Mary's Church in Newtown.

The lives of Richard Owen and Jane Lewis had been just as tragic as William Shakespeare's famous forbidden lovers who had lived in the town at the start of the 19th century.

So the sad tale goes that their desire to be together had been flatly refused by each set of parents and they had conspired to commit suicide by consuming poison at a building near Llanllwchaiarn Church.

According to the the tale Richard had sought help at a factory after Jane became ill before he too became afflicted with the legend of both speaking of the other in their last words.

The lovers were buried side by side on the north side of St Mary's Church in 1815 in the so called Lovers' Graves.

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The churchyard is also the resting place of Sergeant Major John Howe, a veteran of the 10th Hussars at the Battle of Waterloo.

Having survived war he settled in Newtown as an inn keeper and during political unrest in the town during the early 19th century he had made a name for himself by threatening to cut the heads off seven rioters.

In 1844 he was the inn keeper of the Bell Inn and fell while feeding his seven pigs and was knocked unconscious and eaten alive by the animals.

Another legend of the old Newtown churchyard is that of Napoleon's Willow.

A native of Newtown, a Sgt Solby of the 53rd Regiment, brought a cutting from the dead emperor's grave in St Helena and planted it at the north west side of the church in 1821.