St. John's Road Cemetery: Wildlife Haven

            HITCHIN CEMETERY: WILDLIFE HAVEN

Hitchin Cemetery, on St John’s Road, was never set up to be a haven for wildlife so why has it become one? The answer lies in the changes that have taken place to the rest of the country. Intensely managed agricultural land, pollution, development and the everyday use of chemicals has massively reduced our local biodiversity. The cemetery was created in 1857, well before the widespread use of chemicals and its turf is the flowery meadow turf of our history and gives us a glimpse of a past world.

Maintenance methods sympathetic to both wildlife and general public access allow a froth of white Cow Parsley in spring to surround the grave of Mary Dickens (Charles’s oldest grandchild).

Since 2016 North Herts council, who are responsible for the upkeep of the cemetery, aided by Countryside Management Service and its volunteers, have instigated a new maintenance regime where carefully selected areas of the older Victorian section of the cemetery have been treated in a similar fashion to ancient grassland, with grass and wild flowers being allowed to grow long and then cut back like a hay meadow at the end of summer. This has allowed flowers, butterflies and birds to flourish whilst still maintaining the area as a quiet respectful place.

 

  

Summer is a special time for insects and the cemetery is especially good for ladybirds, attracting the common Seven Spot Ladybird and the much rarer Cream Spot Ladybird. So far fifteen different species of ladybirds have been found in the cemetery!

The parts where mowing is reduced allow grasses and Wild Carrot to grow and these areas act as magnets for butterflies like Gatekeeper and Small Skippers.

 

The diversity of plants such as the mauve Corncockle and blue Chicory continues to increase and so attracts an increased diversity of insects, with dragonflies, bees, beetles and shieldbugs all either finding a home, or visiting for food, and this in turn attracts birds such as Green Woodpeckers which come to feed on ants.

  

With the heightened awareness about the decline of bees, butterflies, birds and all sorts of wildlife, Hitchin Cemetery is one place where nature is flourishing in the middle of town.

A Robin helping with cemetery maintenance.