All Saints’ Church is surrounded by a tranquil churchyard that was closed to new burials in 1871.
The Cemetery Garden
The peaceful Cemetery Garden, which opened in 1861, is located across the road from the church.
An enthusiastic group of volunteers meets regularly for an hour on Tuesday mornings to work on the Cemetery Garden. Typical activities include removing ivy, trimming hedges, dead-heading plants, removing weeds, and of course chatting to one another. A social gathering in the Parish Room rounds off the gardening season each year.
Roger Brook lived in Bolton Percy for many years and tended to the Cemetery Garden, which was once featured on the BBC programme Gardeners’ World. You can read more about Roger and his unique way of gardening on his blog – The No Dig Gardener. To read more about our churchyard and its beautiful plants, you may want to read Roger’s blog post about it – Bolton Percy Churchyard.
Below you can watch a short video about the garden and the volunteers who assisted Roger Brook in previous years and who have continued to maintain it since that time, building a healthy group of volunteers in the process. If you have an hour to spare on a Tuesday morning, you would be made very welcome by the group.