Family in bid to renovate Shifnal's cemetery

Anna Marie Dean and her sister Abby Whittle decided that something needed to be done to brighten the cemetery in Priorslee Road after their father Peter Saunders died suddenly in January at the age of 68.

When their father died, they had believed he would be buried in the graveyard at St Andrew's Church, but were told it was now full to capacity and burials would now take place at Shifnal Cemetery.

But, when they visited the cemetery there they were shocked at the state of the area and decided something needed to be done to improve it.

Mrs Dean, 44, said: "Because mum and dad have been residents in Shifnal for 46 years, we were all christened and married at St Andrew's Church, that was where he wanted to be buried and we presumed that was where he would go.

"That was when we were told the graveyard was full."

Mrs Whittle, 37, said: "We were upset anyway when we found out he couldn't be buried there, then we went to the cemetery and saw the state of it."

Mrs Dean added: "They use grey slabs to mark out the plots, I think dad was number 452, and it was just a slab with the number spray painted on it."

Mrs Whittle said: "It was very insensitive and it just looks like a scrap of land."

It was then that Mrs Dean told her family she would do something to make the cemetery better for the benefit of not just her family, but the whole community.

She spoke to an old school friend who put her in contact with David Wassall, who works as a landscape architect.

He put together a series of proposals to tidy up the area, including changing the signs and the entry gates, creating a bin store.

From there he designed two walk ways with pagodas from the car park through the cemetery to allow families to walk easily around in an attractive setting.

The plans also involve putting plants and shrubs in an area of land saved for planting which currently has nothing in it, cutting down the large conifer trees along one side which currently leave much of the cemetery in shade and planting new blue Atlantic cedar trees along the side of the cemetery which currently borders farmland and shielding the pylons which are in the field.

On March 6, Mrs Dean presented her proposals to Shifnal Town Council which welcomed the idea and offered to pay £550 for the cutting of the conifer trees as a contribution to the plans.

Since then, the gates have already been taken away to be powder coated to give them a new lease of life and the family have been donated a new black sign with gold lettering.

They said have also received a lot of support from all three churches in the town.

Now they help to get more people in the local community involved, as they need to raise £10,000 to put the full plans in place.

They will be hosting a charity dinner at Shifnal's Park House Hotel on May 9, a golf day at the Wrekin Golf Club in June and a Flower arranging afternoon also at the Park House Hotel later this year all in the hopes of funding the proposals.

Mrs Dean said: "We're delighted with the plans, we had lots of ideas but it is great to be getting something out.

"But we want to get more people from the local community to engage with the project and help out."

They are hoping that a local firm might want to sponsor the project or that some Shifnal residents may help with fundraising or volunteer their time to help with the work.

Mrs Dean said: "We don't want any other families to go through what we went through."

Anyone who would like to help with the project can contact the group at shifnalcemeterylp@outlook.com