St Mary’s is an attractive churchyard with flowery grassland and plenty of trees. The churchyard provides valuable access to nature in a part of Walthamstow lacking accessible wildlife sites. St Mary’s offers weekly supervised volunteering in the churchyard, and hosts the Burials in Bloom’ project which allows local to adopt and tend to a grave that is no longer visited. There is also an ongoing partnership with Walthamstow Village in Boom gardening group.
Local Wildlife Site
Accessible Sites of Importance for Nature Conservation
St Mary's Churchyard, Walthamstow Village
Borough: Waltham Forest
Grade: Local
Access: Free public access (all/most of site)
Area: 1.19 ha
Description
Wildlife
The site is mostly rough neutral grassland, with scattered trees, shrubs and tall flowers. The grassland is dominated by creeping bent and false oat-grass, with tall flowers such as cow parsley, nettle and large bindweed. A few hills of the yellow meadow-ant are also present indicating these areas have been grassland for some time. The uncommon field madder occurs in an area of short-mown grassland near the church entrance. A good range of trees and shrubs includes horse-chestnut, sycamore, lime, ash, elder, hawthorn and oak. There is a small area of woodland dominated by lime and horse-chestnut, with an understorey of holly and ivy. Many monuments and graves are vegetated with an array of garden escapees, ivy, or a reasonable dusting of lichens and mosses. The churchyard has also installed bat boxes and beehives.Facilities
Historic features; information; sculptures/ monuments
Yellow corydalis © Edwin Van Ek
Feedback
Have a question or a comment for this site, or notice anything missing or out of date? Please contact us.