Churchyards' Report 2020
We are again near the end of the maintenance season and need to settle our contractors bill.
This year has been a surprisingly tricky as the generally fine weather during the summer has been interspersed with heavy rain, which has sometimes prevented timely work being done, resulting in additional cost, time and effort tackling heavy growth. This is particularly so at Tathwell, with a large number of close packed kerbed graves, which are difficult to maintain at the best of times. We do not wish to adopt a policy of spraying off all vegetation, as the barren ground renders the churchyard an unsightly mess.
In addition, also at Tathwell, we have embarked on two projects:
-- to eliminate some very old snowberry; close packed, very woody, and very invasive. It needs controlling to prevent it overrunning the west bank and neighbours property.
_--removal of dead wood and large amounts of attached ivy, which were blocking light and access to the churchyard, and threatening graves.
Both these have produced extra cost of course.
Haugham continues to have a close maintained area around the church, with a circular pathway through the less used western end.
It is rewarding to receive complimentary comments from visitors and new residents, as we are aware that for practical and environmental reasons, whilst we have a policy of keeping the footpaths and more used areas of both churchyards tidy, we allow more growth on the remoter and more difficult areas, although at the same time preventing invasive species from smothering wild flowers. The west bank at Tathwell is now host to rosebay willow herb and an attractive iris variant.
Our churchyards are much used by families of those interred, residents, walkers, and visitors, and we believe it is important to maintain them in a manner sympathetic to their consecrated nature, and appropriate to the rural surroundings in which they are important features.
We always need financial or other support for our efforts, as, of course, we receive none from elsewhere, apart from donations from some of our loyal farmers, and our community colleagues, the parish council. Also, as volunteers get older, we will inevitably come to depend more on paid help for the heavier work. The majority of the work is done by a couple of volunteers at each site, at their own expense, and our contractor’s rates our modest, but we have to find over £350 this year, just for routine work.
There remains a certain amount of tree surgery in both churchyards, advisable in the medium term, but we are deferring this for the time being because of the great uncertainty of church funding generally.
Russell Howard
Churchwarden
Winterbourne, Church Lane, Tathwell, Louth, Lincs LN11 9SR