If only all cemeteries were like this.

[Lady Linda]

I visited a local cemetery in a village near me for CWGC graves and I was dreading having to go through long grass and trying to find them,some not always CWGC shaped graves or on old family memorials.

But see attached photo: On the notice board are all the plot numbers ( all plots were numbered) and the year they were buried. I have never come across this before. But is was so simple and brilliant.

[Guest]

  May we know where it is?    Yes,simple,brilliant......... and certainly not the norm.  Nothing more depressing than an overgrown,uncared for cemetery- where a CWGC marker will often stand out for being well maintained in a sea of weeds and shrubbery (eg Buckingham Road Cemetery,Ilford -awful place-or London Road Cemetery Southend-both of which had gone to rack and ruin)  It's also irritating when one has a plot number but no plot map to find it-some CWGC commemorations give a correct plot number but are still very difficult find. On the other hand, something well maintained is an absolute treat. Near me is the very large cemetery, City of London, in Manor Park,East London- very well maintained by the Corporation of the City of London. In these days of consumer culture, it has a delightful cafe just inside its main gates-with splendid views over the cemetery-not a gravestone in sight and an abundance of beautiful mature trees- a bit like going to the arboretum at Westonbirt.  

     One of the great things about CWGC cemeteries is that they are well maintained-  and a strong reminder that  for many-if not most-of the fallen of the Great war, they have better commemoration than they would have received if they had died at home as civilians.  Think of the work of Terry Denham and IFTC where,routinely, it is unmarked pauper graves that are being located. And a sad and bitter irony,thus, that many men had better treatment in wartime death than they would ever have got in peacetime. 

[Alan24]

     One of the great things about CWGC cemeteries is that they are well maintained-  

Where municipal cemeteries contain war graves, CWGC will maintain (give horticultural support) groups of 10 or more. Where the graves are not part of a group of 10 or more, the local authority is responsible for ground maintenance.  

 

This is very apparent at West Hill Cemetery Winchester. The two groups photographed here are literally about 10 metres apart but clearly very different conditions.

 

I met the CWGC area manager here at a centenary event and ask why the difference - his answer is in my opening line.

 

It's a real shame that all graves are not given the same treatment.

[Lady Linda]

The one I visited was Netheravon in Wiltshire.  I have written to the local village website to congratulate them

I have visited one where the grass was about 6 foot high you couldn't even see the graves.! After 6 months of moaning it was eventually done.

One of our local ones in Salisbury I complained about to our local MP who actually got something done eventually ,(because his great uncle was buried there!)

The one in London Road will probably have had a make over as it was the one where the Skripal relatives were buried and it was a much visited graveyard by the media in fact at one stage we had police guarding it!

On a lighter note as we have visited churchyards recently there have been a really significant number of  CWGC stones replaced with new ones. Even in places were there were only 6 or so.