Hitchin Cemetery Apr-May 2024

 Hitchin Cemetery Apr-May 2024

The cemetery is a lovely place to visit at any time of the year, but in late spring it really looks attractive, with the fresh greens of Silver Birches, Lime trees and meadow grass making a lovely contrast with the spring flowers. The best plant in the cemetery in my view is Meadow Saxifrage and it is thriving like never before, with around a thousand plants. Meadow Saxifrage is a good indicator of old grassland and demonstrates that the cemetery has special conditions which have been lost from much of the countryside elsewhere. A special mention must be made of the mowing teams who take care to strim around the Meadow Saxifrage and I asked Steve Grainger, an expert local photographer, to take some photos and this is one of his.

It is important to remember that the meadow area contains not just showy plants but many unassuming species such as Ribwort Plantain (below left) and Sorrel, and it is not just flowers which provide food for invertebrates; the roots and leaves are important too, for creatures such as snails and the young stages of moths upon which larger creatures such as Blue Tits and Song Thrushes rely. The thought often strikes me that the large grassy areas in the older part of the cemetery exist because they are the unmarked graves of those people who came from the poorest of conditions where no monument could be afforded. In my view they have left us the most important area of the cemetery, full of biodiversity just at a time when we need it most.

There are also some showy plants, mostly around the edges of the older part of the cemetery, such as the Wisteria hanging over from a neighbour and one grave where Thrift has been planted.

 

As well as plants coming in to flower, various insects have been spotted with lots of Holly Blue butterflies and a tiny Meadow Longhorn moth.

 

An unfortunate occurrence was noted at the end of April where one of the cemetery's larger monuments collapsed. The photographs below show before and after. It is not known what whether the monument will be rebuilt and it is certainly beyond the scope of The Friends of Hitchin Cemetery to do anything other than minor tidying in circumstances like this.

 

 

Back to insects again, two final offerings, both of them very unusual sights. On the left is a Parent Bug standing guard over her eggs. Apart from ants, bees and wasps very few insects demonstrate any parental duties after laying their eggs and to catch sight of a Parent Bug mum under a Birch leaf like this was a special moment. On the right below is another female, this time a Big Headed Bee, Andrena bucephala, this is a designated "nationally scarce" bee and it is absolutely fantastic to find one in the cemetery. 

 

Finally, there have been two cemetery tours so far this year, with two more dates to come in July, however one is fully booked already. There are limited spaces available on Friday 12th July at 10:30am. The tours are free: please book your place by emailing hitchincemetery@gmail.com.