God's Acre

An area of land, open to the public, protected from development, with a long history of management as, usually, grassland with scattered trees. 

Nature reserve? No – churchyard!  

 

Photo: Mark Patterson

Above shows one of the 7 lost cemeteries of  London, now no longer a working cemetery, but a local nature reserve, with grave stones overgrown with red valerian, giant squil, catchfly and ox-eye daisy.

 

St Wilfred's Church in Haywards Heath.

Many of our churchyards are havens for wildlife, having had the continuity of management that many nature reserves can only dream of. Many of them are incredibly old – ancient churchyard yew trees often pre-date the church itself, marking pre-Christian sites of worship – and they are often undisturbed, particularly if contemporary burials are taking place elsewhere. This long history of steady management means that species have time to colonise, and some churchyards support a high diversity of plants, insects and – on the gravestones – lichens. 

The rare Black headed cardinal beetle found by Mark Patterson at Tower Hamlets cemetery. A new species for London.

Churchyards do suffer, however, from the blight that afflicts many public spaces – over-tidiness. Especially in areas that are still actively visited by relatives, there is an expectation to see the grass mown short and the weeds eliminated. And that is fine, but as is so often the case, there is almost always space for a little wildness.

In the old, unvisited corners of churchyards, many more enlightened churchwardens allow the vegetation to grow up in the summer, effectively managing it as a meadow. Sometimes they do this in the face of criticism from their parishioners, but surely – in God’s acre – there is room for all creatures great and small?