Children help improve City Centre cemetery
Added: 26th April 2012
Children from St David’s Primary School recently joined staff from the Devon Wildlife Trust and Exeter City Council at a city centre cemetery to help increase the wildlife potential of the site.
St Bartholomew's Cemetery has a wealth of wildlife associated with it including rare lesser horseshoe bats roosting in the depths of its catacombs and peregrine falcons soaring overhead.
As part of the Exeter Wild City Project, staff and volunteers from Exeter City Council and Devon Wildlife Trust joined forces with St David' Primary School to plant thousands of wildflowers including bluebells, daffodils, birdsfoot trefoil and yellow rattle to create a wildlife-rich, attractive and accessible space.
These new flowers will not only be attractive to passers-by but will provide an important food source for insects which in turn help to feed city dwelling bats and birds.
Emily Stallworthy from Devon Wildlife Trust who arranged the day said: “The children had a great time planting up the new areas and are really enthusiastic about continuing to improve the cemetery for wildlife. Some of them are even doing projects on the progress of the plants.”
In the future Exeter Wild City will be arranging public events to plant more nectar-rich plants and build and install wooden bird and bat boxes at St Bartholomew's Cemetery. Anyone interested in getting involved at St Bartholomew’s should contact Devon Wildlife Trust on 01392 279244.