Where we started
Alfington churchyard has always been on “the wild side”, for many years simply strimming the grass in late spring and early autumn and cutting the hedges once a year.
We joined the A Rocha eco-church scheme and gained our bronze award in March 2023 and as we worked towards our silver award we took stock of the churchyard as a whole. We became aware of the possibilities of adding to the diversity of wildlife in this beautiful space.
We began with prayer. Every Tuesday morning at 9am about 5 or 6 of us gathered to pray intentionally for the environment. We focussed on different themes each week – sometimes the big issues of global warming or natural disasters, sometimes on issues much closer to home like recycling and farming.
We then thought about what small steps we could take to make a difference.
It began with foxgloves
We wanted to start with plants that we knew liked the environment the churchyard offered. Foxgloves are biannual but luckily, our eco lead had some potted up which had self-seeded and these were transplanted. Both visitors and especially the bumble bees were able to enjoy them in the first year in the hedge row.
Getting creative with logs
After having our lime trees pollarded at the beginning of the year, we used the logs to provide an amazing habitat for a variety of wildlife. We are blessed to have folk in our community with a range of skills and Simon Norton built an eco seat using only reclaimed free wood and left over material. The logs under the eco seat provide a dryer environment for creatures. To aid diversity we left some logs just piled up to encourage creatures needing a damper area to live.
Going wetter
We were lucky to be given an unwanted pond which we have installed in a corner of the churchyard. This has increased the number of different species living or visiting us. Local children worked hard at both digging and filling the pond. As yet it’s in an early stage but we are hoping it will flourish during 2025.
Bug hotel
To increase diversity still further Simon also built us a bug hotel, again using only reclaimed materials. It is situated on the warm south facing wall of the church and is still a work in progress. The local children are enjoying putting suitable things on the shelves.
Snowdrops and community engagement
In February of 2024 we opened our churchyard for our first snowdrop weekend offering all day refreshments in the hall. The weekend was a great success both in terms of bringing in much needed revenue for church funds but also in showcasing our beautiful church and churchyard. The snowdrops really are very special. We were encouraged with the number of visitors and their positive response and this inspired us to develop areas further. We had large swaths of snowdrops completely hidden behind an area which had been used to compost the grass cuttings and the hedge trimmings. While the snowdrops were still 'in-the-green', we carefully dug some hidden ones up and transplanted them along the east side of the church, an area visible on entering the church gates. We know it will take a while for them to 'bunch up' but we are a patient congregation.
Sloworms
One of the other exciting things we found, this time in our old plastic compost bin, were slowworms: such beautiful creatures and what a privilege to have them living in our midst. Deciding that they needed to live there undisturbed prompted us to build a new compost bin, this time using untreated discarded pallets which were kindly donated. Our new heap is slowing filling up and will provide lovely potting compost to start off our sunflowers in the future.
Getting more organised
At the end of 2024 we were lucky enough to have a survey of our churchyard by Kelvin Boot, a local naturalist, science writer and who assists the Exeter Diocese Environmental Advisor. Kelvin made many suggestions about how we might improve the wonderful space we already have and from this we have developed a five-year plan. This plan could be judged as being a bit vague but future work will, as always, be determined by the abilities of the congregation. One step at a time.
