The old churchyard of Loddiswell Parish Church has now been officially closed.  This means the Church is no longer responsible for its upkeep and it has been handed over to SHDC.  Churchyards are valuable areas of unimproved grassland having been relatively undisturbed for centuries and those which have become overgrown are excellent wildlife habitats.  Wild About Loddiswell have been in discussion with the Parochial Church Council,  the Exeter Diocese Living Churchyards Project and SHDC to see how we can best manage the Churchyard to be of benefit to the wildlife and the local community.  The initial plan is that the immediate area around the Church entrance will be kept tidy, the remaining areas will be enhanced with more wildflowers, pathways created and hopefully benches installed.  Some areas will be left undisturbed to allow the wildlife to flourish. On this page we will be publishing news on our progress and photos

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Our first piece of news is that we have been awarded grant funding by the TCV Chestnut fund for the purchase of tools and by Wild About Devon for the purchase of seed which is a great  start!

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A team from SHDC have been strimming areas of the churchyard in October and continued into November '23, this will enable us to see what's there and plan our course of action.  SHDC will come in twice a year for a hard cut in October when the wildflowers have finished seeding and in February before everything starts to grow.  They will also come in regularly to keep the immediate area around the Church entrance tidy and to keep pathways clear.

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The Church has signed up to the Eco church scheme, we have completed the application section on Land and it shows as currently reaching Bronze status.

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In November '24 we received an interesting post on out Facebook feed relating to a survey of the churchyard. Here's the post:

I had a wander around Loddiswell graveyard this morning looking for grassland fungi. Found H.virginea, H.ceracea and Clavulinopsis corniculata.Short grass and lots of Rhytiadelphus squarrosus moss which is a good habitat for CHEG fungi. These Waxcap and associated fungi are getting rarer because there is very little old grassland. Graveyards are generally good because the grass is cut and taken away reducing soil fertility (unlike most agricultural grassland). 

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