Category: Friends of Brandwood End Cemetery

Completion of the ‘Civilian Garden’ refurbishment

Those of you that follow our blog will know that back in June the Friends engaged ‘Darren Rudge Landscape Designs’ and some of his students to refresh and partly redesign the Civilian Garden of Remembrance flower beds. The beds had become overgrown and following a donation we were in a position to carry out work to reduce future day to day maintenance by our small team of volunteer gardeners. You will see from the photographs below that the results are magnificent, but we would like to invite you to join us at an official unveiling on Saturday September 24th at 10am, followed by tea and cake.

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Sunny day for RHS visit

When we all got up to heavy rain this morning we wondered if the visit of the RHS Heart of England in Bloom judges to Brandwood End might be a wash out, but by lunch time the sun was shining and Brandwood End was looking at its best.

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Volunteers work within Brandwood End all year round doing all sorts of activities. Their work ranges from litter picks, gardening, historical research, environmental projects,  to carrying out surveys, attending meetings and making grant applications.  You probably don’t see us, but we hope you see the effect we have in the cemetery.

The Friends of Brandwood End work with Bereavement Services staff and horticultural contractors to try and improve the ‘visitor’ experience in the cemetery. You may be visiting the grave of a loved one, or walking through as a short cut, carrying out grave research or just enjoying the peace and quiet. Whatever your reason, we hope it creates a pleasant interlude in your day.

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Today we found a local family enjoying their snacks in the Civilian Garden of Remembrance. We are so glad to see people relaxing in this beautiful, peaceful area.

 

New Geranium display!

Our thanks to the Ground Staff from Bereavement Service Dept at BCC        who, finding they had more Geraniums than they needed, deployed them in a ‘new area’ adjacent to the old lodge garden.20160714_145401Keep an eye out to your right as you enter, almost opposite the entrance to their workshop area. Beautiful ! If you are wondering why they are not further out towards the path, the fear was that they might disrupt the track of the large grass cutter operating in that area meant that it was safer to inset them into the hedge area. We think they look rather lovely.

Preparing for RHS visit !

As I am sure we have mentioned before, The Friends have been accepted as entrants into Heart of England in Bloom and will get a judges visit towards the end of this month. Whilst we are not able to affect much of the horticulture or upkeep of the cemetery we feel sure that Bereavement Service staff will be supporting our efforts.

There are a few things we can do, so the hard work in those areas has begun. Our thanks to one of our committee members, Sarah, who has started washing down some of the rain/mud spattered Section Markers. What a difference a bit of ‘Fairy’ makes!!

13606766_10153614895011791_7217377950375550124_n13620319_10153614895081791_6171134702770141459_nBefore….and after !!

 

Our thanks also to Julia who has been popping in and out weeding under hedges and Barrie- who’s shears have been working overtime!  All of these jobs and many more are undertaken continually by volunteer members of FBEC and the community, and happen as if by magic…..but we are making just a little bit of extra effort for this, our first,  RHS entry!!

20150614_09565120150614_103412We hope you have noticed the difference we have made over the last 11 years and we thank all those that have offered their help.

The Friends offer lots of opportunities for members to take part in  projects that inspire them, be it gardening ,war graves, social history, or trees, birds and wildlife. We are always keen to involve anyone with a skill they would like to share. Please e mail us on  friendsofbec@gmail.com.

Can we make a special appeal for someone to be responsible for keeping a digital archive of our activities.  We know  most of our activities are recorded on our Facebook page and within this blog but we would like to have everything kept in one place, and free time restricts the existing committee members from taking this on. Please can you help?

Appeal for Community help!!

Great news…..FBEC have been accepted as entrants into the ‘RHS Heart of England in Bloom’ in the Cemetery category but we could do with some practical help before judging , towards the end of July, just to make sure we make a good impression.

We have at least one wooden bench in our Civilian Garden of Remembrance that needs rubbing down and re-varnishing.

We have an area under a newly planted hedge surrounding a small group of War Graves that needs serious weeding…..

Some of the Section Markers on the main drive could do with a wash …..

…..and a few other small items.

All of these  jobs could be done at a time to suit yourself. (Provided the cemetery is open!) If you think you can help, can you contact us  by e mail on friendsofbec@gmail.com. to arrange times and dates etc 20150614_095651 Many thanks

Work on the Civilian Garden of Remembrance

FBEC have been lucky enough to receive a donation from one of our members that has enabled us to revitalise the Civilian Garden of Remembrance in the Cemetery.  Our main concern was that the beds had become over full and hard to maintain and that the quality of the soil needed improvement. The work was beyond our members abilities but we were able to engage ‘Rudge and Wood’ who are based at Winterbourne Botanical Gardens to undertake this project with some of their students.

20151026_125730It started like this…….and is nearly complete, so it looks like this…20160622_152413

 

20160622_151937It should be complete by the end of the week and we hope to hold an official unveiling in the near future so watch this space. Our thanks to Darren and his team and you can see more photographs of them at work on our facebook page.

Coffee Morning and Annual AGM

 

Postcard view of the Chapels (undated)
Postcard View of the Chapels (undated)

 

Annual AGM

Those of you with an interest in Brandwood End Cemetery are cordially invited to a ‘Coffee and Cake’ morning to be held in the conference room of St Dunstans Church, Kingsfield Rd, Kings Heath. (Opposite All Saints Village Square) on the morning of Thursday 14th April at 10.30am.

We will be holding a short AGM at the start of this event, when we will present our annual accounts and report on our work in Brandwood End Cemetery.

We hope you enjoy the historic view above?

 

Friends of Lye and Wollescote Cemetery pay us a visit!

It was lovely to meet some of the newly formed ‘Friends of Lye and Wollescote Cemetery’ as they paid a visit to Brandwood End. They were amazed at the size and the beauty of the tree lined avenues and monuments. FBEC have been in contact with West Midlands Historic Buildings Trust as they were seeking our advice on how we had formed our ‘Friends’ group.

Dudley Council transferred Lye and Wollescote Chapels to West Midlands Historic Buildings Trust, who made an Heritage Lottery application for the site to be renovated and it is now to be used as the Registry Office for the area with a resident Registrar. The Friends themselves were not involved in the funding bid or the restoration as work was more or less completed prior to their formation. We wish them luck with their group.

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If you would like to see what has been achieved at their site you can follow this link .

 

 

 

‘Clean for the Queen’ litter pick in March 2016

Glorious sunshine helped our ‘Clean for the Queen’ litter pick in Brandwood End today. A dozen volunteer and the local Ranger dodged the heavy traffic in the Cemetery today to collect 32 bags of litter!  Most of the collected rubbish consisted of flower papers and we would like to appeal to visitors again to remove the papers from flowers left at grave sides.IMG_8412 The recent winds have created pockets of rubbish along the Sunderton Road boundary fence and Broad Lane, which will soon be enveloped in brambles so todays efforts were well worth while.

Our thanks to our volunteers and the Ranger for giving up their time on Mothering Sunday and we hope to see you all again at our usual quarterly litter pick in June.

IMG_8410We were also able to use this event to promote membership of the Friends and an awareness of what we do in Brandwood End.

All the volunteers were amazed at the volume of traffic that we observed passing through the cemetery today. With vehicle numbers in the hundreds every hour, speeding was not an issue and there were queues on all the main drive areas!

IMG_8420This should give you an idea of the volume of rubbish we managed to collect, and these two bins were just in one area!  32 black bags in all…IMG_8423

 

All in all….a good mornings work.