Uncovering The Past part 1

 All Saints Churchyard is a wonderful green space surrounding the Church building. A space with with a variety of wildflowers, insects and birds, it also has a number of monuments and gravestones, I have mentioned a couple of the notable memorials on previous posts. When we are working the Churchyard these memorials are a reminder of of the past, our shared past where people lived, raised families and faced the difficulties of the time, for example reading many of the inscriptions makes one aware of the high rate of infant and child mortality. From time to time when clearing and sweeping a gravestone we come across one that is buried under years of leaf mold. Clearing the surface of one such stone only lightly covered we came across the edge of another completely buried. Slowly carefully we are clearing the surface, it is beautifully decorated with a very detailed inscription. Tantalisingly a date 1877 and the words 'New Orleans' clearly readable among the visible script. It is very exciting to get this glimpse into the past and reveal something that has been hidden for so many years. 

In my next post hopefully we have cleared it and be able to give more details. 

June

 

June has been very dry and hot! The plants have struggled in some areas and have required watering we are very fortunate that local people have helped us with this. Also we have had the community payback team working in the churchyard and they have done a really good job clearing around overgrown graves and weeding the flagged path. Elsewhere we have finally finished clearing a stretch of the lovely stone wall opposite the South Porch. This North facing wall is very dry at the base but will provide a lovely backdrop to plants that can tolerate those conditions, in the same area a butterfly house and open fronted nest box have been put up both made from recycled ocean plastic. Also making the most of this dry spell we finished painting the Joseph Hauge Memorial picking out the finials in antique gold.