sun rising burial ground
NEWS!
Updated : 14 March 2008
Spring is here
After our first flush of snowdrops, planted last October, the first daffodils are now in flower at Sun Rising, and what a delight they are. These are the wild English native daffodil, Narcissus pseudonarcissus.
The leaves of the wild ramsons, bluebells and other bulbs are still hidden in the grass, but will come through into flowering in the coming months of spring.
Also in flower is the blackthorn, not just in the established hedgerows, but also on the hedge plants that we put in around the car park in December 2007. Memorial and other trees are starting to swell with leaf buds. This picture is of the bird cherry that stands by the entrance to the burial ground, and was taken on 13 March.
To see the promise of new life here is always an honour and a delight that deeply moves us.
Towards the end of March as part of our spring management programme, we shall do our first strimming, tidying the graves after the winter, and be sowing our special wild flower mix of seeds.
Newsletters
Our twice yearly newsletters are now available as pdfs to download: have a look at our Newsletters page. A note about this is sent out to a few people on our mailing list: if you would like to be on the list or prefer to receive the news 'paper-free', please let us know.
No Dogs
From time to time we have found visitors coming to the burial ground specifically to walk their dogs. On our display board it does say that we don't allow dogs on the site without permission, but we felt we should make this a little more clear. As a result, we now have a new sign to deter dog walkers. It only takes one person who is more interested in their dog being exercised than respecting the graves to upset visitors. We hope you like the sign: we think the dog is rather cute.
Autumn Activity Days
This year's Tree Planting took place over two weekends : 17 - 18 November and 8 - 9 December. We had a wonderful crew of volunteers and families planting memorial trees, together with hedging and trees around the edge of the site.
The Roundhouse
The Roundhouse was completed in May; have a look at Roundhouse Construction to see pictures of the building process. With our early winter tree planting, we put in three ivies and four roses to climb the oak beams, allowing the whole structure to settle more fully into its foundations. During the torrential storms of July this year, however, our sedum roof was damaged; areas have now been replaced and we are watching it to see how it copes over the winter.
Structural Work
The last stretch of track is now complete. There should be no need for us to do any further building work at the site for a good five or ten years. The next period of significant work will be the ploughing and seeding of larger areas for wild flower meadow; we plan to do this during autumn 2008.
Web Hosting
Nature Reserve Burial Grounds Ltd uses Eco Hosting : a solar based web server.