Farnworth Cemetery sits on the edge of Moses Gate in Bolton, with fields and woodland close by. A Greater Manchester directory records a sighting there on a sunny afternoon in October 2012.
Two women, named in the entry as Alanah and Sherri-Lee Belk, were in a field near the cemetery when they saw a large black cat about fifteen metres away. They describe it as large, and it did not linger but ran off in the opposite direction. That is all the entry gives: there is no description of size beyond large, no photograph, and no follow up.
Big cat reports of this kind are common across the Pennine fringe and the urban edge of Greater Manchester, and almost none have produced a carcass or a clear image. A large domestic cat seen at a distance, or a fox or dog in poor light, are the usual mundane explanations. The record is kept as one named sighting at a specific place and date. The cemetery is public; the field next to it may not be.
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