Very old trees are often found in churchyards, the most ancient often being yews. The reason for their long survival could be that these are unprotected areas, unthreatened by felling. It may also be that yew trees and their poisonous berries were kept away from grazing cattle by boundary walls.

As Thomas Gray describes in his poem ‘Elergy Written In A Country Churchyard” it is a place ‘far from the madding crowd’. Holywell Cemetery with its mature trees has that sense of peace and removal from the bustle of Oxford life. It is a place of refuge and for reflection.

Those whose earthly lives have ended are marked by many and varied tombstones, a geologist’s delight, giving brief details pf their time. How little their titles, lifespan and occupations tell the onlooker. What great and what ordinary people now reside there as neighbours. The main theme of Gray’s poem is that death is a great leveler. Although many of those buried in his churchyard were poor uneducated workers, they had their own merits and dignity.

‘Full many a gem of purest ray serene

The dark unfathom’d caves of ocean bear

Full many a flow’r is born to blush unseen

And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Visitors may find themselves drawn to the headstones belonging to the famous, the achievers and the intellects. There are many whose lives are unsung, whose headstones give only names and dates. It is one of the pleasures of the gardening days at Holywell Cemetery to uncover stones ravelled in ivy and brambles; to acknowledge those ‘ordinary ’lives lived in our city. William Stanley Braithwaite describes Death’s unifying democracy.

‘In calm fellowship they sleep

Where the graves are dark and deep

Where nor hate or fraud or feud

Mar their perfect brotherhood.’

Holywell is a remarkable place and a wonderful resource, not only for remembering the past, but also as a living space. This Saturday there is a Nature Survey taking place, during which species will be logged and then sent to the National Biodiversity Network. We will be checking up on whether the bird boxes installed earlier this year have had any residents.

The Poetry Group will be meeting at the Cemetery to study Thomas Gray’s poem, and others, in the final meeting of this term on Wednesday 14^th at 5.30pm (weather permitting.)