Rectory Lane Cemetery, Three Close Lane, Berkhamsted HP4 2DH
www.rectorylanecemetery.org.uk
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We wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Thank you for your continued interest in the project, your support and help during the year - it's meant a lot.
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We'll be celebrating the 10th anniversary of the project next year - what a lot has been achieved! Please help us get off to a brilliant start by coming along to our drop in Volunteer Social.
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VOLUNTEER SOCIAL
Friday 12th January
18.30 - 20.00
Mad Squirrel Brewery Shop, 104 High Street, Berkhamsted
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Just drop in, buy a drink from the bar and come out into the cosy covered courtyard.
Come if you already volunteer or if you'd like to find out more and meet others who do.
If you've not been around for a while we'll be especially chuffed to see you again!
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If you’re interested in volunteering but can't make this date please email team@rectorylanecemetery.org.uk. You could join us in a friendly work party - either weekly on a Wednesday afternoon or monthly on a Sunday afternoon. There are still plenty of tasks to do over the Winter, to prepare the space for spring and then how glorious it will be in the late spring/early summer!
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The ponds are getting thin layersof ice on them some mornings, but our floating tennis balls should stop them from freezing over completely.
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The low sun picks out the mounds of the yellow meadow anthills which pepper the upper slope of the cemetery
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The large Ash tree at the top of the cemetery has dropped the majority of its leaves, where our blanket of spring primroses appears.
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A series of giant molehills? No, just a systematic approach to leaf raking in the lower cemetery.
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We're delighted to welcome Stanley, our new Duke of Edinburgh volunteer. With the support of his parents he was making a difference in the other half of the lower cemetery!
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INTERRING ASHES
Did you know that you can now have ashes interred in our Cemetery? We have already had four interments with accompanying fused glass tiles installed on the Celebration of Life wall. It is a beautiful and peaceful location for relatives and friends to inter and remember their loved ones, and so accessible in the centre of town. Interring ashes contributes vital funds towards the costs of keeping the space beautiful. We know from lovely feedback from relatives how much this is appreciated.
If you are interested in finding out more about either interring ashes or commissioning a glass tile do get in touch: team@rectorylanecemetery.org.uk
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A small Remembrance Wreath Laying service at the War Memorial in the Garden of Remembrance was well attended.
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Books in the Woods (Berkhamsted Branch) which meets in the Cemetery on the 3rd Saturday of the month is continuing into the New Year. Next dates are 20th January and 17th February.
You need to book here to join in.
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WildStrong continues with its group movement sessions on Tuesday mornings. The sessions are at a gentle pace and movements can be adapted around you. For more information contact Sarah sarah.langridge@wildtstrong.co or visit https://wildstrong.co/berkhamsted
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A few of Jackie Henderson's paintings of the cemetery were displayed at the Berkhamsted Art Society's Winter Exhibition, along with the text below:
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An artist’s experience of… painting in a cemetery? A strange concept for some, especially for me whose artistic interests lie in movement, rhythm and a rainbow of fabulous colours!
In the Victorian-age site of Rectory Lane Cemetery in Berkhamsted, I painted “en plein air” in oils. I had been asked to produce some work to represent the space during their Heritage weekend in September, so this is what I found.
Cemeteries are indeed people places for today’s people, affording a calm open-air space. Commencing painting I was happy to find a lot of “drawing” and structure. The horizontals (pathways) and verticals (trees) kept my eye moving around wherever I looked, so quite easy to find strong shapes to work in. Then the light coming through the mature trees produced an ever-changing bounty of “pops” of bright colour. There are three sections to the grounds, the lower portion as described above, then moving uphill through archways there are pergolas, hedges and atmospheric views across the valley where Berkhamsted nestles. Further up a wild garden, pond, tree sculptures and bee hives. There are plenty of places where flowers show their bountiful presence too.
My personal favourite site was under the Irish Yews (of course, I am Irish!) which raise their arms upwards, letting liquid silver light pour down onto shapes below. After that is the Angel of the South sculpture reaching up into the leaf strewn canopy, again light pouring through.
Finding shapes to create a visually engaging work is the aim of us artists. I found my experience very rewarding, in that this space just “gives” in terms of information, and while there are the basic mathematics to consider there is also charm. Many headstones sit quirkily while refusing to fit a line and rhythm, they catch the light differently, making greys look more green/pink/yellow/blue/violet etc. Like the people they represent possibly?
Many painters like myself have worked in cemeteries this year where landscape, architecture, horticulture and history come together, providing a space to spend time in.
We are grateful to Jackie for donating some of her sales to the Project and would welcome any other artists who wished to come along and paint this beautiful and inspiring space.
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We have a small but brilliant team of volunteer genealogists who are tackling the task of discovering more about all the people who are buried here - sometimes with the aid of family relatives, but mostly using genealogy websites, articles, publications and other research sources. We like to share some of the stories - here is the biography for this month - appropriately it's for THOMAS TOMPKINS, one of Berkhamsted's butchers. Thomas would have been very busy at this time of year.
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This is a picture of the 1925 Christmas display of RW Thacker’s who then became Eastwoods by Newman, the Berkhamsted photographer, with thanks to John Halsey and Herts Memories.
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Thomas Tompkins was born in 1834, and followed in the footsteps of a line of Tompkins butchers. His shop, with a slaughterhouse at the rear, was on the High Street.
He is reported to be well known and universally respected, cheery and good natured.
His shop was decorated every Christmas and made a good show of all the victuals people could purchase.
But he died aged 52, after a lengthened illness, and the Herford Mercury and Reformer of December 1884 reported that 'it was his misfortune to be very stout and this hastened his death'.
In the Museum Store in Berkhamsted is his highly decorated waistcoat (‘for a man of ample girth’) probably inherited from his father Francis Tompkins (1795-1851) also buried in the Cemetery.
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The future of the cemetery is entirely dependent upon donations - of time and money. Please help to keep the community space going for future generations to enjoy. If you’d like to make a donation towards the upkeep of the space it’s simple and quick to do via this link, and will make such a huge difference
https://www.rectorylanecemetery.org.uk/sustain/support/donate/
THANK YOU
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