Rectory Lane Cemetery, Three Close Lane, Berkhamsted HP4 2DH
www.rectorylanecemetery.org.uk | | | We were delighted with the turnout of young families at our Easter Discovery Trail. The forecast hadn't been great - but the threat of a bit of rain doesn't stop parents of young children getting out and about! In the end it was perfect weather for trailing!
We are grateful to Berkhamsted Town Council for its financial support which enabled us to deliver the event.
Lots of children and adults enjoyed discovering more about the Cemetery using our lovely cluecard (created by Lizzie Martell) and information from our knowledgeable volunteer guides at every stop. Families received a warm welcome at the start, could buy homemade refreshments and the children enjoyed the added treat of Easter-themed craft activities.
It takes a lot of prep to put on our events and we're grateful to our volunteers who help in a range of roles, including those who put up and take down the three gazebos! | | | Our photographer Colin Drake captured the day for us and there are so many pictures of lovely families enjoying the trail we are including them all - if anyone would like their own high res copy of their family please get in touch team@rectorylanecemetery.org.uk. | | | Our next event designed for young families eager for discovery is our Great Big Nature Hunt. This event is free, but we ask you to book so we know how many people to expect - you can book NOW using the QR code or via this link. | | | Berkhamsted is entering the Britain in Bloom campaign - and we're excited to be part of Berkhamsted in Bloom! | | | Britain in Bloom is the largest horticultural campaign in the United Kingdom, organised by the Royal Horticultural Society. The competition is entered by over 1,600 communities each year, participating in their local region's 'in Bloom' campaign (we are within Anglia in Bloom). More than 200,000 volunteers are involved in cleaning up and greening up their local area.
Britain in Bloom encourages, recognises and rewards efforts in three core areas: Horticultural Excellence; Environmental Responsibility; and Community Participation. Here in Berkhamsted, passionate volunteers have been adopting rough, scrubby areas in the town and planting them up with cultivated or wildflowers for a few years now - for example, at the station, on lower Kings Road, bottom of Castle Street, at the top of upper Kings Road... others maintain the Millenium garden in Canal Fields, a community garden has been established behind Sportspace. Brilliant teams regularly clean up our precious chalk stream, the River Bulbourne and pick up litter. We all enjoy and benefit from these improvements and get inspired to green our own locations and local schools are ensuring that their children participate too. Pubs are joining in with hanging baskets and colourful individual gardens along the canal can be appreciated by passers by. This is the kind of activity which we want acknowledged and amplified through the Berkhamsted in Bloom campaign - to bring togther all the fantastic volunteers, with council and business backing, and recognise everything that is being done. The creation of the Berkhamsted in Bloom campaign has been spearheaded by the former gardeners of Open Door, (who sadly had to take apart their beautiful community garden last year but made sure they distributed lots of plants and tools to other community gardens and are now starting again on one of the Sunnyside Rural Trust sites).
Rectory Lane Cemetery will be put forward in the Best Community Project category. Our Adopt a Grave programme where volunteers take on previously neglected grave areas and create beautiful miniature gardens is key to this. As is our general gardening and sustainable management of the three acres, with biodiversity initiatives like our ponds and wildflower introduction, undertaken by work party volunteers.
Judging will be done in July. So, do please think about whether you could take on a grave garden, or join a weekly work party once in a while to help us to look our absolute best. We are a very friendly bunch and no experience is needed. Get in touch.
If you'd like to learn more or get involved in other Berkhamsted in Bloom initiatives come along to our first stall (outside the Civic Centre) on Saturday 23rd May - we'll have some great giveaways there! | | | So great to welcome new volunteer gardeners! Two of our latest adopters standing alongside 'their' graves, ready to get going. | | | Activities in the cemetery cater for both younger and older age groups | | |  | | A woodland playgroup, inspired by children’s books, with child-led activities and free play. The Berkhamsted Branch has regular get-togethers in our Cemetery. |  | | Here are the upcoming dates. There is a small fee payable to them and you need to book via this link | |  | | WildStrong Berkhamsted focuses on movements and skills for life in their group classes which take place every Tuesday morning between 10 and 11 at Rectory Lane Cemetery. |  | | The session focuses on strength, stability, mobility and exploring new movements. Currently a more mature group, but all welcome. Email sarah.langridge@wildstrong.co for more information. | | Rectory Lane Cemetery is a beautiful and accessible place for commemmoration and for the interment of ashes. Do think of the Cemetery when considering loved ones you have lost. We have a dedicated area bordered by flowering shrubs and looked after by our volunteers.
Providing this service helps to fund the future of the Cemetery.
For more information, follow this link: https://www.rectorylanecemetery.org.uk/sustain/memorialising/ | | | Who's buried here?
An important element of the 'Dead Space to Living Place' mission is to discover and celebrate those people who are buried in the cemetery, who had been largely forgotten - as time passed and the physical space became neglected.
Over 7,000 people are buried here and our dedicated small team of volunteer genealogists are painstakingly researching each person. The results are then uploaded to our website where everyone can read them. Sometimes relatives give us information and photographs to include, but often we are able to add to what they knew about their own family members! | | |  | MARION BLANCHE TUDOR
Marion Blanche Tudor was born into a landed gentry family in Wales in 1849, married Lieutenant Oswald Peploe Tudor RN in 1874 and died in Berkhamsted in 1933, aged 84. She is described as 'the wife of Vice-Admiral Oswald Peploe Tudor CVO,RN' and, like a lot of other women buried in the cemetery, the story that we can gather is pretty much that of her husband, with the addition of six children and 34 years of widowhood. Would that we we could glean more of her daily life, but that is rarely the case.
There is no evidence that Marion travelled with Oswald on his various naval postings, but their lives together included living in Jersey and southern Ireland.
Her husband was likely to have been the source of both pride and some concern to Marion at several points in his career. To discover more about this intriguing statement, follow this link to the biography written by one of our volunteer researchers.
She outlived him by 34 years and is buried in the cemetery on her own. | | | Can you help us?
Providing the service of ashes interment is just one way in which we are keeping the cemetery current for the local community. It's also a way of raising funds for the continuing maintenance of this space as we ask for a donation, in lieu of a fee, which would be payable to any commercial cemetery.
Finding the money necessary to pay contractors, our part-time ranger, repair and replace machinery, repair and deal with any damage to the three-acre site is an ongoing challenge for the charity.
If you'd like to help raise money to keep this award-winning community asset going - either personally, or through any association or organisation you're part of, please do get in touch. There are many ways we can collaborate or facilitate sponsorship of different aspects of the project.
Thank you. | | | | | |
