Churchyard news....

It is a delight to be able to announce three wonderful pieces of news about our churchyard!

First, following the success in 2008 of being awarded first place in the ‘Best Kept Churchyard’ awards, St Peter's has won second place in the 2009 award. This is the result of much hard work and partnership between Parish Council, Church Council and the team of volunteer church members, co-ordinated by Jill Tattersfield, who do so much gardening during the year. Planting of bulbs and sowing wild flower seeds was carried out by the Girl Guides, and one of the church Youth Groups helped with the removal of ivy from tombstones.  Our thanks go to Jill & the team, to John Sparrow (Parish Council) and to the grass cutting contractors.

Linked to this is the wonderful National Lottery-funded ‘BBC Breathing Spaces’ award which has enabled us, in partnership with Parish Council, to improve paths, access and planting in the churchyard through the  project. This is a national initiative, encouraging local people to ‘Make a place for Nature near you’. Thank you to Jill Tattersfield for putting in so much time in making the application.

Third is Village Church for Village Life Award: this national award, introduced by Sir Roy Strong and promoted by Country Life magazine, seeks to discover the finest example of a historic, rural parish church that has successfully engaged the wider community to create a focus for village life in the 21st century. Churches must demonstrate that the whole community – worshippers and non-worshippers alike – have played an active part in the project. In addition, an awareness of the importance of the churchyard will be taken into account. 

We were delighted to learn that, from an entry of over 100 churches, St Peter’s was selected as one of the six finalists in this competition. A group of us went to the Mercers Hall in London where the presentation took place and were we met the Duchess of Cornwall. She expressed great interest in the work that has been undertaken and wished us luck in the future.

We would love some more volunteers to join the team.   If anyone would be prepared to help, even for light tasks like watering, you would be most welcome.   Please contact Jill on 561241.

A few of our church volunteer gardeners