Cemetery work earns reward

10:29am Tuesday 16th May 2006

SWINDON'S Ranger Team showed it has a lichen for moss.

After a year of hard work to restore and improve the Radnor Street Cemetery, the rangers have won the Living Churchyards Award from the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust.

With the help of volunteer rangers and the community gardening group Leaves, the rangers are constantly working to enhance the biodiversity of the designated local nature reserve.

Rangers team leader Karl Curtis said: "We will be monitoring from baseline surveys to set management objectives for what we need to do to improve the area in the future.

"That could mean anything from building more bird boxes, planting native trees or building a watering area for wildlife, like the memorial garden pond that Leaves have been working on."

To celebrate their hard work, the rangers were back on site at the weekend with face painting, arts and crafts and the opportunity for children to build their own bird boxes.

A survey of lichen, an organism made up of algae and fungi, was also co-ordinated to help monitor the levels of pollution in the area to help the rangers with their research.

Historian Mark Sutton was also keen to see the site preserved and maintained. He said: "This churchyard is very important, we've got the history of Swindon here.

"The Military Cross of Sacrifice here at the cemetery is very rare and should be listed in itself.

"It's the only one of its kind for miles."

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