Tag: brandwood end cemetery

Great News- Wildlife Project funding secured.

The Friends of Brandwood End Cemetery are excited to announce that we have been successful in a bid to the National Lottery (Heritage Lottery Fund) to undertake a ‘Help for Hedgehogs’ project in Brandwood End Cemetery and the surrounding area. The project will be delivered for us by The Wildlife Trust (Birmingham and Black Country) and the Ranger Service who will be offering events and workshops, over the next year, to encourage local residents to improve Hedgehog habitat and also surveying the cemetery for Hedgehog activity.

jpg version of hedgehog launchPlease come along and support this event and learn why Hedgehogs are in dramatic decline and what YOU can do to increase the local population.

Some of these events will be family orientated and other will be of a more serious nature, for those of you that want to learn how to and participate in surveying for Hedgehogs. Come along to the launch and find out more!

September litter pick

Another quarter of a year has passed and we will be carrying out our next Litter Pick on Saturday 3rd September. Meet at the Lodge on the main drive at 10am. We may also need to be watering the newly planted Civilian Garden of Remembrance if it stays as hot as it is now! IMG_8412Please come along and enjoy an hour and a half strolling around the cemetery and clearing any unsightly litter you may come across. Bags and pickers provided but stout shoes and gloves advised.

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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RHS Heart of England in Bloom-Judges visit due!

Gosh, such a frenzy of activity in the cemetery. We are sure the RHS and all our visitors will appreciate it! Gates mended, benches varnished, beds weeded, roses pruned, hedges cut, notice boards washed, section markers scrubbed, litter picked…….. but hey…..we actually do all of these things all the time- but not usually all at the same time. Well done to all our supporters and committee members for stepping up to the plate. Fingers crossed.IMG_0317 13775614_10153644742371791_1088155904869228560_n Can we invite anyone who is interested in the visit of the Judges to Brandwood End to pop along and join us. We will be meeting them at 3pm by the Lodge, on Wednesday 27th July.

Sarah has spent two weekends re varnishing our two benches- so why not come along and sit on them!

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?

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 .