Churchyard Nature Board Update

Having installed our interpretation display in the south aisle of St. James' Church we are looking to improve the visitor experience outside the building.

If you have seen our newsletter you will know one of our projects is to install a nature board in the churchyard so I thought I'd provide an update on where we are with this.

The plan is to install the board along the western wall of the bell tower (see the mock-up below).

However, to do this there are a number of financial and administrative hurdles to overcome.

Firstly, regarding funding, we have just been informed that The Harley Charity has granted us funds for a number of small projects, one of which is our nature board - so MANY MANY THANKS to them. (I will be posting separately about the generous grant we have received and what we will be doing with the funds.)

We have obtained the permission of the Diocese of Hereford for the installation.

We have obtained the approval of the Wigmore Group Parish Council (WGPC) who manage the churchyard.

We now have to obtain planning permission from Herefordshire Council as the churchyard is in a conservation area and outside a Grade I listed building. WGPC have offered to include the nature board as part of a broader planning application they are submitting which will save us the fees of applying separately so hopefully we will soon have all the necessary permissions in place to go ahead.



We plan to use Shelley Signs to manufacture the board for us as they did a great job with the interpretation display but the materials used will be different - we are going for hard wood surround and legs to be more in keeping with the natural surroundings. The board panel will be approx 1.5m x 0.5m.