On the morning of Saturday 8th September between 10am and 1pm the Friends will be taking part in Heritage Open Week.
Please come along and join us. We will have plenty of interesting items and displays and you can join one of our Grave Walks (numbers limited) highlighting the plight of ‘Labour Corps’ members who are buried and remembered in Brandwood End.
If you have any interesting memorabilia concerning the activities of local Suffragettes we would really love to see it !
Nesting is now over for this year- so we have been able to restore/cut the hedges in the Civilian Garden of Remembrance back to their neat and tidy state.
Our thanks to the staff from Idverde who have undertaken this task on our behalf. As the hedge is now mature cutting and shaping it represents a major piece of work. It is now beyond the Friends so we rely on assistance to keep everything ship shape.
The Friends still cut and maintain the hedge in the adjacent small War Graves area.
On Saturday the 3rd March between 10 and 11.30am we will be supporting the latest Keep Britain Tidy SPRING CLEAN- LITTER PICK campaign.
Please come along to Brandwood End Cemetery in Woodthorpe Rd, Kings Heath and support this event. We will supply litter pickers and bags. Please wear stout shoes/boots and gloves. Meet at the Lodge on the Main Drive.
Lucky for us, the sun shone today as a few of the Committee of FBEC wrestled with huge bags of bark to top dress the beds in The Civilian Garden of Remembrance!
A few weeds pulled, a bit of snipping here and there, some bark, a rake and a sweep ….and everything soon looked spick and span.
You can see a few more photo’s taken by Nicola Clarke from Idverde HERE
and the final result…………………
Thought some of you may be interested in this link to an album we are creating for the above event.
Gosh, where has 2017 gone. Today saw the last scheduled Litter Pick for 2017 and hopefully by the time we ‘pick’ again in March, we may be seeing some signs of Spring in 2018! Our thanks to today’s volunteers. Here….yet again ….are some more early snowdrops we found today and also some of the fungi nestling in the leaves around the cemetery.
On Wednesday this week we unveiled our latest addition to Brandwood End Cemetery….a lovely Interpretation Board displaying lots of information about how to ‘Help Hedgehogs’. This is the final event in our Heritage Lottery sponsored ‘Help for Hedgehogs’ project.
Lots of people to thank today…. Councillor Tristran Chatfield, who unveiled the board for us , Bereavement Service Office and Ground Staff, all our local Councillors, The Wildlife Trust (Birmingham and Black Country), The Park Ranger Service, SHED, Woodthorpe Primary School, St Albans RC Primary, Rachel (our film maker), FBEC volunteers and finally the local community.
Attendance was up again at this mornings Remembrance Event. Our thanks as usual go to Deacon David for a very thought provoking few words and also to Bereavement Services staff, who made sure the area of the Cross of Sacrifice was leaf free. Every year wreaths are laid on behalf of the Royal British Legion, local Councillors, The Masons, The Order of Buffaloes, Selly Oak Royal British Legion and ourselves but this year we were joined by our Local Neighbourhood Policing Officers who try to attend all their local events.
Those of you that follow the activities of FBEC will know that a few years ago we enlisted the help of local pupils to create yet another hedged area to surround a small section of War Graves that we felt needed to be defined. The majority of our 300+ War Graves are scattered throughout the cemetery.
The original project took place in early 2014 so barely 3 years later and the hedge is now well established.
Whilst we were in the cemetery with our shears we also removed stragglers from this hedge.
Both these hedges were planted in define areas but also to increase habitat for birds, insects and especially Hedgehogs within Brandwood End.
Three years on…… a well established hedge.
Despite agreeing that no serious hedge cutting would take place to our hedge surrounding the Civilian Garden of Remembrance (for ecological reasons), we had to give in- and do a slight top trim today as some of the uppermost shoots were stretching nearly a meter above the hedge itself!!
Before, with the stragglers standing proud!
Back under control below. We have made sure that the main body of the hedge remained undisturbed.
Julia, assisted by our youngest gardener…and an after view, looking much tidier.
Can we also report that our redesigned and replanted beds are now coming into their own and reflect a riot of colour and texture, whilst needing minimal attention. Mission accomplished !
Hedge uncut in this one ….. Beautiful texture filled beds
