So pleased to welcome our beautiful Winter snowflakes back to the Lodge railings, just in time for Christmas. Our thanks again to Valerie for all the effort these take. We can reassure her that they make visitors smile- and they need something to smile about at this time of storm damage!
This is a Consultation ending on January 9th 2025 that may interest many of our followers concerning the possible changes to Burial and Cremation practices. You can access it via the link below.
Law Commission consultation on burial and cremation – Ministry of Justice – Citizen Space
We were pleased to welcome yet another Team of volunteers from Deutsche Bank to Brandwood End this week to help with our ongoing project to make every grave in the cemetery accessible. Many of the older graves have been lost for some years under Ivy, Holly or in some cases self set trees. The Friends, assisted by various Corporate groups, have been working all over the cemetery to try and make sure visitors can get to family graves.
The coppice area they were working on and how it looked afterwards, graves revealed
Sometimes this involves removing Ivy or small Holly bushes and other shrubs that have grown out of control. There are lots of self set trees, mainly conifers, growing on or between graves. Many of these have now reached significant height and width and can obscure maybe 6 or 8 graves! If possible we remove lower branches (crown lift) to allow access to graves but occasionally the tree will be removed.
Deutsche Bank have been on site on several occasions this year and we hope to welcome them again in the New Year. Follow this link to see further photos.
Our last Grave Gardening Session for 2024 will be on the 14th December starting at 11am and running till 12.30pm Meet by the Lodge on the main drive near the entrance. Please try to arrive on time as we will be moving to another area on this 53 acre site and may be hard to find.
Everyone is welcome but under 16’s must be accompanied by an adult.
Stout footwear is advisable and you may want to bring your own heavy duty gloves, although we do have some available.
Our thanks to the eleven Volunteers who turned up this morning to help clear even more shrubbery, but this time we spent some time specifically cutting back the end of Section 41, which was encroaching on graves.
Follow this link to get a flavour of their morning.
Brandwood End Remembrance Service 2024, Sunday10th November at 10.45am