Saturday 8th – Sunday 16th June 2024
Thank you to everyone who took part in Love your Burial Ground Week, Churches Count on Nature and National Cemeteries Week 2024. Over 400 events and activities took place during the week.
Next year, Love Your Burial Ground Week will be on Saturday 7th of June to Sunday the 15th of June 2025
For over 15 years we have been encouraging all who help to look after churchyards, chapel yards and cemeteries to celebrate these fantastic places in the lovely month of June. Last year we saw history talks, picnics, bioblitzes, recording events and photographic competitions!
For those who recorded wildlife and sent records in, these will now enter the national process of verification. Verification is undertaken by volunteers with expertise in a particular area – for example a lichen expert, beetle expert etc. There are not enough verifiers in the UK and so there is a backlog – please don’t worry if your records do not appear on the national map for a while – they are safe and will be of great value! To speed the process up do consider using the fun and fabulous app – iNaturalist .
Churches Count on Nature is part of Love Your Burial Ground Week, focusing on the brilliant wildlife to be found in churchyards and chapel yards. It is a is a joint initiative promoted by Caring for God’s Acre, the Church of England, the Church in Wales and A Rocha UK. National Cemeteries Week is hosted by the National Federation of Cemetery Friends. We hope all events during the week will be registered here to raise the profile of these wonderful spaces.
If you want to carry on or start recording wildlife – visit this page to find out how to get going and how to share your records all year round.
If you are thinking of running activities in your burial ground this year you may find our resources page useful. The map of 2024 events can be seen here.
