It's been an exciting few weeks! The Cemetery Park has been featured in a top ten, we've hosted some wonderful talks and we've welcomed a colourful new addition.
The Friends of Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park WHAT WE’VE BEEN UP TO
We're very excited to have been included in a recent Guardian article which lists ten of the UK's best nature reserves on reclaimed land. As many of you know, Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park is one of Victorian London's "Magnificent Seven" cemeteries Originally a burial ground, it was closed in 1966 and re-designated as a public park. Today we take pride in being a haven for all, a place for remembrance, nature and our local public.
We were very excited to welcome deaf and hard of hearing service users from London and Birmingham to our first online nature talk for deafPLUS. The talk, delivered with the help of a interpreter, explored common plants such as bindweed, common daisies, English oak, dandelions and nettles. We've had lovely feedback from participants, many of whom had not attended anything quite like it before and who we hope to see again at future events.
After months of tireless work, our artist in residence Louise Hildreth has unveiled her beautiful, already much loved, new addition to the cemetery park. The sculpture, crafted entirely from natural materials, is designed to embrace its setting and gradually fall back into the ground. The colourful arch now takes pride of place just off the footpath within a future wild flower meadow alongside the railway tracks. Check it out on your next visit!
The Friends of Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park ONLINE EVENTS
Join Terry Lyle, a Trustee of the Friends, as he tells us about the great variety of summer wild flowers that can be seen in August and September on Scrapyard Meadow. Following this talk, we'll be taking a short break from our publicly accessible online events and focus on getting people safely back into the park in person. Thanks for all your support over the past few months, we've loved having you!
Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park THINGS TO SEE
Trumpet Vine
Campsis Radicans
A bignonia, this fast growing, woody, deciduous, perennial vine is native to the Eastern United States. In the US, the exotic looking flowers are pollinated by the Red-Throated Hummingbird. Bumblebees do visit the tubular red flowers, but they've evolved to be pollinated primarily by Hummingbirds.
The flowers have a rather intriguing adaptation for receiving pollen. They have a bilobed Stigma which can open and close in response to visits from different pollinators. This increases chances of pollination and ensures ample seed production. Touch alone won’t trigger the movement, pollen needs to be received on the Stigma. This movement has received a lot of attention from researchers.
Striking and absolutely fascinating, we have a mature plant in full-flower at the main entrance to the Cemetery Park. In its current position, it has grown slowly and only begun to flower profusely over the last few years. It doesn’t seem to grow to the same massive proportions as it can in the U.S. but it has thrown out a few suckers along the boundary wall.
Nettle Leaved Bellflower
Campanula Trachelium
Also, called Bats in the Belfry, because the stamens inside the flower are said to look like bats hanging in the bell of a church steeple. An English native, this Bellflower can be seen across THCP along the edges of paths and in the margins of the woods.
It’s stinging nettle like leaves and bell shaped flowers are really interesting. Not to be confused with the regular stinging nettle, which is a wind pollinated plant and thus doesn’t produce a flower to attract insects for pollination. Bellflower plants cannot sting you. It’s resemblance to stinging nettles is a form of Batesian mimicry. An adaptation that affords it protection from predators. It’s a harmless mimic posing as harmful.
In folklore, fairies were thought to live in their blooms. The plants always have been considered charmed. You don’t want to hear those bells ring, though, as lore holds that they will be tolling for you. It was also believed to be a cure for sore throat, the species name trachelium refers to its use as treatment of the throat in folk medicine.
The Friends of Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park NATURE & US
Nature & Us is a community project run by the Friends of Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park. Keep up to date with our news and events by signing up for our newsletter.
The Friends of Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park GET INVOLVED
Help Us Survive
Make a donation, share our campaign or take care of the park in our absence. Any support is greatly appreciated.
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Less than 20% of our funding comes from Tower Hamlets Council. Register and help keep the park a safe haven for all.
To find out more about our upcoming events, visit our website or follow us on social media.
