I went through the lych-gate at the church of St Nicholas on a damp day with wet leaves thick underfoot. The grass alongside the churchyard wall to the left, where generations of folk taking a short cut from the village have beaten an unofficial footpath, had just had its annual cut. The cut is only annual, rather than more frequent, because this is territory favoured by a protected species, the slow worm.
Slow worms like to lie close to the headstones and were previously highly visible, and vulnerable to predators in the short grass, but now this section of the churchyard is managed by South Somerset district council under the Living Churchyard scheme, so as to become a sanctuary for them. Residents have become used to the fact that, instead of a closely mown sward, they now see grass allowed to grow long, offering shelter and encouraging the growth of wildflowers.
It was a few years ago that I went to another churchyard, similarly managed, at St John the Baptist, Brewham, and was told of the foxes, deer and green woodpeckers that frequented it, the birds attracted by the yellow ants. So I knew about living churchyards, but it is only now that I have heard of golf courses that are following suit. A scheme called Operation Pollinator provides golf courses with the expertise to be managed “in harmony with the environment to provide valuable wildlife habitat”, and to contest the decline in bumblebees.
I remember a fox sitting at the greenside and watching attentively as someone holed a putt at Sherborne golf club, across in Dorset, as well as rooks threatening young rabbits, and courting cock pheasants stalking the fairways. Further afield, in Bendigo, Australia, there were kangaroos basking in the bunkers.
But now, thanks to an initiative by a member of the greenkeeping team, insect and bird life at Sherborne will flourish. Some areas afflicted with weeds that are non-productive of pollen are to be cut, scarified, and oversown with a wildflower seed mix, and enthusiastic golfers are acquiring the unfamiliar skills required to make bird and bat boxes.
