Stroud churches collaborate to boost churchyard biodiversity

Stroud Deanery is working with local partners in a bid to protect and restore biodiversity in churchyards.

19 representatives from churches across the Stroud Area Deanery gathered in North Woodchester to explore how churchyards can become havens for wildlife. The event brought together the District council, Parish Councils, Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust (GWT) and local churches in a unified effort to protect and restore biodiversity.

North Woodchester provided a fitting location for the meeting; it’s home to both an open churchyard at St Mary’s Church, and a closed churchyard at the site of a former medieval church – which is also the site of a Roman villa and scheduled ancient monument.

The event, organised by Jennie South, the Deanery Eco Ambassador for Stroud Deanery, and Andrew Pemberton from St Mary’s, was led by Rebecca Charley, Strategic Lead for Nature Recovery and Biodiversity at Stroud District Council, and Megan Adamou from GWT.

The group discussed the key challenges in effective environmentally informed churchyard management. Three prominent concerns were the limited availability of human resources in parishes, the difficulty of balancing opportunities for wildlife with the need to respect graves, and the need for churchyards to appear active and well-loved.

Rebecca offered four practical strategies:

Avoid black-and-white labels: Terms like ‘neat’ or ‘messy’ don’t work; the message to get across is thoughtful and balanced management. ‘Re-wilding’ was considered an inappropriate term.
Collaborate locally: Work with parish councils, schools, and local eco-groups.
Survey first: Understand what wildlife is already present before making changes.
Look at the wider landscape: Consider how your churchyard connects with surrounding wild spaces.

Megan highlighted her upcoming launch of a ‘bio-blitz’ guide, which enables people to collect their own biodiversity data. She also introduced the ‘People’s Nature Reserve’ Scheme, which maps public and private land managed for nature across the county.

Jennie reminded attendees of the resources available from the ‘Caring for God’s Acre’ organisation, which offers practical guidance for churchyard conservation.

The group took a tour of St Mary’s churchyard, and saw existing conservation efforts, including recent tree planting, varied grass management, compost heaps, and a new flower bed. Rebecca and Megan offered specific recommendations:

Dry stone walls provide valuable habitats, but leave a strip of un-mown grass next to it to increase biodiversity.
Prioritise natural bird habitats before adding nest boxes. You can install swift boxes, but a good mixture of trees offer excellent shelter. A hedgehog box would be a good addition, in a sheltered spot, and is unlikely to be used by rats.
Delay mowing until spring temperatures are consistently above 10°c. Leave grass uncut where and when it is compatible with presentation requirements. Use yellow rattle to reduce vigorous grass growth, best sown on bare earth, or purchased in ‘balls’ which get the seeds started.
Plant locally-sourced native trees that are known to do well in the terrain.

The group ended with a visit to the old churchyard, where potential was spotted for enhancing wildflower growth in the Roman pavement area, already blooming with primroses.