Hitchin Cemetery October - December 2025

The cemetery's primary purpose is obviously as a quiet place of remembrance and contemplation but in addition to this the cemetery is notable for its wildlife and in particular its "Unimproved Grassland". The UK has lost most of its old meadows because of high-intensity farming methods, and patches of high quality unimproved grassland which are left, such as the cemetery, hold significant levels of biodiversity. The photos below show just some of the fungi which were fruiting during the last months of the year, all of them indicative of healthy undisturbed grassland.

 
                        Suede Bolete                                                        Yellow Club Fungus

                        Earth Tongue                                                                Meadow Coral

 

               Fairy Ring Mushroom                                        Parrot Waxcap

Adding to the cemetery's diversity are many species of trees and even though some are non-native, such as the evergreen Holm Oak near the St John's Rd gates, they all support a range of wildlife. Although its acorns are a little smaller than the English Oak an acorn cup I spotted was still big enough to provide a shelter for four ladybirds. Also its leaves are host to the extremely small caterpillars of the Holm-Oak Dot moth: up to twenty individuals were on each and every leaf, meaning that on a tree this size there must be in the region of one million moths, and yet the tree is perfectly healthy!

 

                        Holm Oak                                                Sheltering Ladybirds

 

Tracks of Holm Oak Dot moths

Speaking of ladybirds, I spotted a rolled up leaf and found two sheltering Cream Spot Ladybirds and after a quick photograph I rolled the leaf back up and put them back in a safe place. It just goes to show that not being too tidy and leaving some dead leaves around can really help wildlife: a good message for anyone with a garden, especially as ladybirds are the gardeners friends by eating plenty of aphids.  

 

A few notes on what the Cemetery Friends group have been up to...  irrespective of the previously mentioned "not being too tidy" ethos, we did actually clear the path underneath the Black Pine (the largest tree in the cemetery) which had shed many needles over the course of a few weeks of high winds making quite a pile. We have taken these needles and filled in a few collapsed graves which perhaps makes for a slightly unusual sight, but we feel its rather better than the previously sunken and somewhat neglected appearance.

Pile of needles...                                              spread in sunken graves 

Another Friends Group task was to make a gravestone more readable as a very well established Yew had been encroaching. The bush will be a bit messy for a couple of years until it grows back, but it is now easier to read the inscription to Private Henry Colin Hagger of the Royal West Kents who died in France on July 3rd 1916, aged just 21 years old. It is worth noting that the website "Herts at War" has details of all Hertfordshire-based military service personnel who died in action. A search on this website reveals that Henry volunteered in June 1915, went to the Western Front and went missing in action on The Somme and was presumed dead with his body never recovered. He is remembered on Thiepval Memorial in France, here in Hitchin Cemetery and on two other war memorials in Hitchin: at St Mary's and at Holy Saviour.  

  

On a lighter note, a memorable Friday in November when it rained incessantly saw us us planting several hundred of Narcissi bulbs (kindly provided by N Herts Council), so some of the areas where grass is allowed to grow longer will look great in spring with their additional flowers. We also obtained a few native Daffodil bulbs (Narcissus pseudonarcissus) which have been planted between the Chapel and the Lodge so look out for these dainty additions too.

The next few months will see the Hitchin Cemetery Friends Group doing their best to keep the borders and graves weeded, shrubs trimmed, bird-boxes cleaned, litter picked and fallen branches tidied and find a way of marking the 10th anniversary of the group's formation. In 2025 we welcomed over 100 people on our very popular free cemetery tours and we look forward to arranging some more tours in 2026.