During the Summer, we joined the A Rocha Eco Church scheme, and are very excited to announce that we have achieved a Bronze Award! We work very hard with very limited resources and a small congregation to best preserve the beautiful Church and its lovely rural setting.
Our Church and churchyard are beautiful and many love walking through this part of a much cherished and ancient local landscape with its special trees and hedgerows in a unique and unspoilt valley location. Maintaining good paths and access involves a lot of work and expenditure and this year’s weather conditions with the huge amounts of rain, followed by very hot weather, have added to rapid vegetation growth and other challenges. The churchyard is also on a slope and the ground is very rough which adds to the complexity of maintaining it. We are balancing public access and the place as a burial ground and following the national Church’s clear guidance on increasing biodiversity in churchyards. The Church of England is committed to seeing how biodiversity can be increased on Church land and we share that objective as a parish.
We have been advised that areas of churchyards should be left unmown to allow sward and rare species to grow up and flower. The Church of England has published guidance for parishes on increasing biodiversity, which will form the basis for our planning. This includes leaving areas of long grass, creating wildflower areas, putting bird and bat boxes up as well as installing a bug hotel (or two!), keeping bees and encouraging hedgehogs. We are currently developing a parish diversity action plan as well as cataloguing and finding ways to promote wildflower growth and provide habitats for animals and insects. This has meant adjusting mowing plans with less frequent strimming and only maintaining paths. Once our reports are ready, we will be sharing them on our website, and will update you in our monthly newsletters.
We welcome any newcomers to the team of volunteers who clean and maintain the Church if they would like to get involved.
