Saddleworth St Chad has 4 distinct churchyards, plus grave areas within and immediately surrounding the church. Our strategy, make sense of our situation and helps us to understand what it means to care for an historic Churchyard.

There is a requirement from the Diocese, Local Authority, along with other regulatory bodies that we have a formal written strategy, that explains what we do, when we do it and how. So as to demonstrate that we have the necessary skills and knowledge to create a sound and sustainable plan that is needed to keep the churchyard open.

The best strategy, involves contribution from many different perspectives and as we learn more about our situation we can update our strategy. This means the information within becomes more specific to our needs and includes proactive actions.

Churchyards are a valuable heritage and a great responsibility. There is a duty on churches to keep these in decent order.

The following is from Historic England, which encourages us to think about the various considerations.

• Historic
• Landscape design
• Tree Survey
• Ecological Survey
• Buildings gazetteer and condition survey, including gates, boundaries, memorials, tombs and others
• Biographical research of the people buried in the cemetery
• Review of the curial and cremation business needs including new burials and constraints like regulations
• Review of current management including, security, traffic, waste problems like vandalism, path surfacing
• Find out about the cemetery users, visitors and the community’s view about what they value and how they would like to be involved
• Assessment of the historic and cultural importance of the churchyards, (Listed buildings and monuments, conservation, tree preservation orders and protected wildlife, habitat and geological designations)