Rewilding a churchyard in Sandwich

In fact, there's been a place of worship on the site for well over a thousand years.

Saint Thomas of Becket and Edward the Confessor are both known to have prayed here, but in recent years the churchyard had become neglected, with the local council having responsibility to maintain it but that really meant little more than keeping the footpaths open, so the whole three-acre site had become choked with ivy and ground elder.

Now a group of volunteers are taking the time to keep the worst of that back, but they're aiming to try and make it a place where native plant species can thrive.

And with that comes a wealth of insect and bird life.

In the spring of 2024 I met up with some of the volunteers at the churchyard, led by Barry Brooks.

Barry: So, it's called Saint Clement 's Churchyard Rediscovered because that's what we're actually doing. We're rediscovering all of the things that have existed here for many years that have become overgrown or neglected or abandoned.

Rob: If we went back before you, you, you started just before COVID actually, if we go back to five years or so, then what did this churchyard look like?

Barry: OK. So what you were effectively seeing was tarmac footpaths that led to the church or through the church yard. You really could not see anything else. It was totally overgrown with Bramble, with ivy and with elder. Now bramble, ivy and elder are important plants and I'm not getting away from that.

But actually, they're also destructive plants because they cover the indigenous natural flora as well that are on in terms of ground cover. So our plan has been to gradually remove those killers really of, of the ground and create a situation where people can walk through the churchyard, leave the, the tarmac path and enjoy the, the tranquil beauty of the, of the place.

Rob: And you've succeeded. I mean, it looks absolutely lovely now.

Barry: Well, we're, we're, we're fortunate because we're partners with Dover District Council who, who have helped us with what I would call the heavy lifting lift. Lifting the, the tree canopy to give more light, removing the, the green waste and things when, when we clear it and having cleared the ground, of course, what we have discovered, you've got the Queen Anne lace coming through.

You've, you've got the anemones coming through, you've got the primroses coming through at various times of the year.

And for us, that's a stunning, that's, that's the payback for us, that we, we have rescued a place that was lost.

Rob: And you could have chosen to reinvigorate the gardens here in any number of different ways. You could have chosen to have gone down the kind of formal gardening route and it could have had, you know, had green grass lawns and you could have had planted flower beds and you could have done all of those kind of things. And you've not chosen to do that.

You've chosen to make it as natural a place as possible to let as many of those kind of natural species, as you said, the, you know, sort of aconites and bluebells and things like that to come through and to, to leave it a little bit shaggy around the edges.

Why did you decide to do that rather than to go down the, the kind of more formal route?

Barry: Well, I think the idea was to give nature a helping hand rather than to force nature into a corner where it did what we wanted, really. That it, it is shaggy around the edges, as you say, because that's the way it should be. We don't want people to feel intimidated. We don't want the, the plants to be restricted, you know, even when we, when we mow the ground, as you see, for, for the footpath, we'll, we'll leave an area where plants are coming through here.

You know, you've got the Queen Anne, Queen anne 's lace. You've also got the, the wild garlic coming through and the bluebells coming through. They're important.

You know, they, there's a poet that I'm certainly impressed by called Robert MacFarlane, who wrote a series of poems and books called Lost Words. And he talked about what subsequent generations were losing. They were losing a, a love for the dandelion, the daisy, the buttercup, things that I grew up with as a child.

And what we want to be able to do is at least to create the opportunity where people can see that again, either for older people remembering and younger people learning, you know.

Rob: And how does it make you feel now then when you come into this space?

Barry: I'm, I'm thrilled when we get it to this, this, this point, as my wife will tell you, I worry like crazy when it's, when this growing season starts, will we be able to maintain it and, and get it to the way that we, we want it to be. But no, it's a joy.

And, and the, the joy comes through with other people 's comments. You know, when we're working here, people will tell you we're, we're thanked on a, on a, on a regular basis in, in the town, people will stop and ask how the churchyard is going, how the bees are.

“You know, will there be any honey soon?” You know, all of all of those things. That's a payback that money come by, really.

Rob: Now Barry mentioned the bees and the honey there. One of the key projects has been to install a pair of beehives that produce three lots of honey a year for the congregation. Paul Garforth is one of the bee custodians.

Paul: We've adopted a policy that we respond to our bees, not getting our bees to respond to us, which is a roundabout way of saying the bees will get on with doing it.

And we interfere with them very little. And all we've got there is just what we call the brood box, which is the main box. But eventually what will happen is we'll put what's called a super on top of that. So we take the roof off and then there's a smaller type of hive with smaller frames that we put on top. And in between that and the brood box, we put a queen excluder, which means the queen can't get into the super to lay any eggs, but the worker bees can get in to lay down the nectar and turn it into honey.

So we take honey about three times a year, but we don't take it all in a super. We have ten frames and when they're full we will take six. We always leave four for the bees because they don't make the honey for us, they make it for themselves.

But we do get a good crop from them three times a year and it's different types of honey because of the different flowers they get in the pollen.

Rob: So I was going to say that that commercially grown produced honey, they tend to be from one particular kind of thing.

So do you notice the difference in flavours in the honey depending on the time of the year and what's in flower immediately around.

Paul: Exactly the well we, I mean, they fly probably three miles to go and get the nectar. That's how far they go away, come back. But you get the runny honey, which is, you know, really drips and good for putting on your cereal. Then you get what would be a thicker honey that you know is really solid stuff. And then in the autumn you get the really dark coloured honey and they all taste different, but they're absolutely beautiful and they're left.

We don't sell it, we supply it to the congregation and we just say if you'd like to leave a donation, we do it that way.

Rob: Why do you like bees?

Paul: They're such fascinating creatures. There's twenty thousand bees inside that hive and that hive in the summer there'll be sixty thousand bees in there.

It's unbelievable.

We have got an observation hive, so it's like a nuclear box with five frames in and we can put a frame in the top and we can lift it so it's behind Perspex so people can view it because we are, we're the only ones who see inside the hive when we're doing our inspection that for people and children in particular because with Barry, we've done three schools, done talks with the children and they're fascinated and they're questions.

But look what's happening there on their legs. They're covered in pollen. So they're coming back with white pollen at the moment and then you'll see them later on in the year with yellow pollen.

I'll say they're trousers, but they're coming back having got the nectar, got the pollen, pollinated the other plants as they move about. I mean, these are wonders, wonders of the world.

Rob: So what does it mean to you then? The fact that you've been part of this group that's renovated this whole churchyard and brought it back and brought the bees in here and created all these wilder areas in the churchyard, how does it make you feel? Why do you do it?

Paul: Well, it was in danger of becoming a wastepaper basket and a dog toilet as all things, if they're overgrown and appear to be not cared for, then people don’t use them.

Now the number of people who come in here and the benches that have been put round to sit and you don't have to go in church to see God and come sit on this bench here.

Just sit and listen. I was here the other day and I just put my phone down and recorded fifteen minutes, a bird song non stop. I need to sit here and do that. That's fantastic.

Barry: We're very fortunate that there are, there's the bird observatory down in the bay and [inaudible]. So I asked one of their experts to come and give me an indication of what was likely to be here.

You know, I'm thinking robin, wren, pigeon, you know, half a dozen birds in the two surveys he's been here, he's, he's identified 32 different species of birds either flying through the churchyard or singing in the churchyard and which is wonderful.

And that's again, one of the great joys that when you sit in the churchyard and take your mind off everything else is there. You can just hear the birds, though. You can hear it now.

Rob: Bob Ward leaves locally and was one of the first volunteers to get involved in the project.

Bob: In the moment of madness, I said I'd be prepared to take some of the ivy off the tombs because they were completely covered in ivy. And I said to Barry, “would you be prepared to give me a hand with that?” And he's, he liked it very much. Before you knew it. Yes, yes, he was running the show. And that's 2018, so we've been doing this now for 6 years and realising a, a, a vision which I think he's spoken to you about.

Rob: Yeah. And and from your perspective. How does it feel now when you come down here and take a look around?

Bob: It feels lovely. It does really, you know, we're, we're, we're proud of what we've got here. We really are. And to see it developing, still have more plans to do things here.

Rob: But yeah, so we stood next to a huge holly. And I haven't seen many bigger holly trees than this. It's a full size one isn't it? I any ideas how old it is? Well over a hundred years?

Bob: Yes, it would be, yes. There's a lot of lovely trees in the churchyard. It's one of the real features of it - beautiful trees. And it's this, this area here is, is an area that we've left wild, completely wild to do its own thing, but created paths, as here, to get people off the main path and to see this and to experience the, the wildlife here.

Rob: And is it important to you to put the kind of the, the natural elements front and centre of, of what you do?

Bob: Yes, it is. It is very much so. There's obviously a formal area around the church, which will always be so, but the paths and work that we've done away from the area around the church is, as I say, to get to get people to, to come into the churchyard.

We've heard it said by somebody once that I didn't know you could come off the path and into the churchyard.

Rob: And which is your favourite bit?

Bob: I'm tempted to say going to the George and Dragon afterwards!

Rob: So, Barry, we've come over to another part of the churchyard and we've got a big patch of stinging nettles here. And what's this covered in, In blue flowers?

Barry: Yeah, it's, it's green alkanet. As I say, I went for a long period thinking it was borage, but it's not borage, It's green alkanet.

Rob: And it seems, I mean, it's alive with bees.

Barry: That's right.

Rob: Dozens and dozens of bees. And I'm presuming that you've deliberately left this as a kind of much wilder corner to allow the wildlife to actually, you know, keep a foothold here.

Barry: That's right. We've never actually seen a hedgehog, although we have seen foxes. But areas like this are ideal for them to be able to nestle down. And by keeping this level of intensity and keeping the borage, the green akanet, as we say, it allows the insects the opportunity to, to develop and grow and establish their own habitats, which is which is critical for all the work we do. You know, it's standing here. You can see

Rob: What, what kind of responses did you get from people when you actually started doing this work? Because it is a churchyard and obviously all of the, the headstones and you know the, the alkanet is growing up and the stingy nettles are growing up around see three or four headstones in front of us here. And people have very personal reactions to all of this kind of thing, don't they? So has it been welcomed what you do?

Barry: In the main it has been welcomed. But as you say, there are different views. When we first started to talk about what we were doing, there were some people were panicking because they thought we were going to create sort of a regimented kind of green space where you would just push the lawnmower around, you know, like a Commonwealth Graves place, which was never our intention.

But the fact that someone raised it, it was in their minds. We had the opportunity to talk to them. Wwe explain why we're leaving certain areas. And once people understand why we're doing it, they, they recognise that and I think embrace it and and enjoy it. And as I say, when we point out places like the Buddleia is a is a great place to see butterflies.

Whereas once upon a time people just walked along the path and ignored them. Now you can see them going and having a close look and to see the various butterflies that are there.

Rob: Jean Garforth is Paul, the bee man 's wife, and for her, part of the joy of the project has been uncovering the history of the church yard.

Jean: I find it really fascinating. Things have been uncovered that have been hidden for quite some time in some cases. And we discovered physician to George the Third.

He was one of the cases. He disappeared in a whole heap of brambles and ivy. So when the tomb was discovered, we read the inscription. We thought that's quite amazing.

Rob: And so I mean, obviously it's been a sort of huge amount of like the, the history of the church has been uncovered by literally taking away the brambles and the ivy and then nature has come back in all sorts of other different ways.

Jean: But how do you feel about that? How do you feel about the the look of the church now? I just love it. I just think it's a spiritual place. It's a place to just sit and take stock really. When the cherry trees are out, it's just amazing. It's like standing and pink confetti. It's just a wonderful space. It's actually full of spring flowers, so you've got primroses, you've got wind flowers. I think there's an asphodel.

So, it's just a really beautiful space to walk through.

Rob: And Mike Judd, similarly, has been part of the crew for several years now.

Mike: I live just just over the way there and I've got an allotment through here, so I've passed through this churchyard frequently, particularly in the summer.

And it's a wonderful place to come. And my arm was twisted by Barry and he, he said “can I do something with this?”.

And so I said yes. So that's the reason I, and I feel that I somehow owe it to people to come and do this. I, I taught history for years at the school and I'm very interested in history and looking at the different graves and looking at the way in which people have have dealt with this. I have a sort of an affinity with this area.

Rob: So we're stood in the shade of an enormous copper beach here that's spreading out over. And we've got gravestones all around us, but they are completely, not completely covered over. But the we've got lots and lots of the this queen anne 's lace.

We've got lots of bluebells. There's all sorts of other lots of vegetation.

Mike: Yeah.

Rob: And a few weeks ago there were, there were primrose?

Mike: That's right. The primrose is here. And that was, to my knowledge, one of the first years since I've been here when that was shown because we were able to take a lot of the, what I would call the grot away, which allowed us to see that.

Rob: And you, you get something out of just being here.

Mike: Yeah. Because I like being outside. My wife and I are pretty big in terms of, of gardening and, and gardeners. And I just like, I like to see this stuff come through naturally as I've got the pleasure of coming through this churchyard almost daily, particularly in the summer. And I feel that I should be giving something back for that.

You meet people and you can talk to them and they will and they want to know what you're up to and that attracts them into the churchyard as well. It's a, for me, a pretty win-win situation.

Rob: The churchyard around Saint Clements in Sandwich is a really lovely place to go and visit. It's a quiet oasis in the town, a perfect place to take five minutes rest if you're in the area doing those kind of touristy things.

Now if you're interested in learning about how to make a similar shared space or even your garden a bit more wildlife friendly, there's loads of good advice on the Kent Wildlife Trust website.

Take a look at the Wild About Garden section. It's got advice on planting and avoiding using pesticides, attracting reptiles and amphibians. There's even events like Open Garden Days where other enthusiasts show off the fruits of their labours.

Well worth getting involved.

Well, as always, do let other people know about this podcast and the work of Kent Wildlife Trust.

If you could like and subscribe and even share a link on your network, that would be brilliant. This has been a Wild Rover Media production. I'm Rob Smith, and until next time, do go wild in the country.