Conservation Management Plans

There are about 7,000 ha of cemeteries in England, and nearly all of them have some special local, if not national, importance. Nonetheless, judgements have to be made concerning their historic, aesthetic, wildlife and amenity value, and the extent to which they can sustain change or should be preserved as they are.

The question of how best to manage these large and complex sites can best be solved by co-operation between the various professional disciplines and interested parties involved. An integrated approach makes it much easier to manage the cemetery effectively, find the right balance between high-level maintenance and benign neglect, and make the best use of scarce resources. For example, it is not true that wildlife will always flourish best where natural processes have been left to take their course; the right kind of management encourages diversity, and balances the need to preserve historic interest with the promotion of biodiversity, whilst maintaining a pleasant and secure environment in which visitors can feel at ease.

A Conservation Management Plan is a tool for assessing what matters and why, and working out what needs doing and how to go about it. The best plans integrate all interests, and are especially effective when all those concerned with the cemetery have been involved in drawing them up. Friends Groups can play a particularly valuable role, identifying issues to be addressed, co-ordinating voluntary labour, maintaining links with the local community and fund-raising. Consultation should include local residents: people whose homes overlook the cemetery may have strong feelings about it, even if they never visit the site.

Preparing a Conservation Management Plan

Drawing up a Plan is a two-stage process. The first step is to describe accurately the cemetery and all its features, its significance, the resources available and the possible constraints. The second step is to work out what needs to be done and how. The table below illustrates this process of assessment through to developing management programmes.

PREPARING A CONSERVATION MANAGEMENT PLAN

The first stage in managing a site involves an assessment of what matters and why - usually a conservation plan. Specific management actions or detailed prescriptions can follow this but should not precede it. (adapted from Kate Clark, 2001)

ASSESSMENT

• Understand the cemetery
• Assess significance
• Define issues and constraints
• Set vision and policies

ACTION

• Management programme including management prescriptions and maintenance checklists
• Budgets and work programme
• Option appraisal and feasibility study for new developments like new burial plots (if appropriate)
• Business planning
• Monitoring and review of management plan (including programme of condition surveys)
  

Analysis and evaluation of the significance of the cemetery for the Conservation Management Plan will require research and survey, which might include:

• Documentary research into written descriptions, maps and plans of the site;
• Architectural survey;
• Monument and sculpture survey;
• Biographical survey of the people buried in the cemetery - social, ethnic or religious groups, or notable individuals;
• Landscape design survey;
• Ecological survey;
• Survey of the local community's views on what they value and how they would like to be involved;
• Appraisal of the current care of the cemetery - by visitors as well as official guardians.

Assessing historic or cultural importance is particularly difficult in the case of cemeteries. They have been neglected in official surveys of architecture and landscape, a situation that is only now being rectified. Some of the key indicators of quality and significance that could be used to determine the importance of a cemetery are:

• The number of Listed structures within the cemetery;
• The inclusion of the cemetery in the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest;
• Conservation Area status;
• The existence of any wildlife or environmental designations covering the cemetery.

It is, however, important to remember that the absence of any official designations should not be regarded as evidence that a cemetery has no significance or value. It may simply mean that the cemetery has not yet been included in the national surveys. Regardless of official designations, therefore, the local assessment of the cemetery's conservation significance should take into account the presence and integrity of:

• Entrance lodges, gates or screens; boundary walls or railings;
• Chapels;
• Other significant buildings: mausolea, catacombs etc;
• Monuments that are striking because of their architectural design, decoration or sculptural quality;
• Burial sites of famous or important people;
• Evidence of the historic layout, and of subsequent adaptations of the layout;
• Evidence of the historic planting, including notable trees;
• Diversity of wildflowers, fungi, shrubs, trees - especially rare and protected species;
• The presence of wildlife, including birds, mammals, reptiles and insects - especially rare and protected species.

Identifying key issues, problems and opportunities

The Conservation Management Plan should set out clearly the key issues involved in the conservation of the cemetery. These might include:

• controls over the site or restrictions on proposed work, including statutory designations
• financial constraints
• the condition of buildings, monuments and memorials
• the condition of landscape features
• site security
• ecology and wildlife
• the need to accommodate new burials
• access and community use

Problems that need to be addressed might include:

• damaged or dangerous structures and trees
• the need to repair or renew hard landscaping
• blocked or broken drainage systems
• the need to repair or renew planting
• lack of security and the need to maintain or repair gates, fences and boundary walls
• vandalism and vagrancy

The cemetery might present opportunities that should be investigated. These might include:

- the potential to make the cemetery accessible to the local community and the wider public
- the use of volunteers, for research, survey and recording, for practical tasks such as clearing brambles, and for organising events and activities
- the encouragement of biodiversity: following a Habitat Action Plan (see below)
- the potential to use the cemetery as an educational resource
- the availability of funding (see Funding)

Setting priorities

The second part of the Conservation Management Plan sets out the work programme. It should set out priorities for attention in the short, medium and long term. The Plan is also a tool for the local community and Friends Groups in planning how they can help to look after the cemetery. The topics addressed in this part of the Plan might include:

Short term

• co-ordinating research efforts effectively, for example by using local studies libraries and collections, local history and family history groups, Friends Groups and wildlife groups;
• devising an efficient and accessible way of gathering together all the available information, pictorial, photographic and written;
• devising a system for regularly updating records and further condition surveys for monitoring purposes
• urgent repairs to dangerous structures
• urgent repairs to entrances and boundaries

Medium and long term

• monitoring and reviewing the Plan, its inventories and surveys, and the efffectiveness of policies and repairs
• specified repairs to buildings and monuments; Listed monuments and structures will be obvious priorites for repair work on account of their special interest
• restoration of historic landscape
• habitat creation and management tasks
• day-to-day maintenance
• new developments including new burial areas

Conservation Plans in Action and Informed Conservation (see Further Reading) provide advice on Conservation Management Plan and researching historic sites and buildings.

 Maintenance and repair of memorials in the Conservation Management Plan

The comparatively recent development of cemeteries means that there is less reliance on local building materials and design forms than would be the case with an historic churchyard, for example. In both cases, however, the principles, procedures and practice of implementing appropriate maintenance and repair of memorials will be the same. Maintenance and repair must be based upon a sound understanding of the separate elements that go to make up the memorials, and how they may be reasonably expected to perform.

Types of memorial

The most common form of memorial is the simple headstone, but cemeteries contain a vast range, including pedestal tombs, crosses, obelisks, table tombs, chest tombs, ledger stones and allegorical sculpture. The care and maintenance of each memorial will vary according to its complexity, and the level of expertise required to plan and implement any interventions will also differ accordingly.

Materials and how they deteriorate

The predominant group of materials used for memorials is stone. Other materials used include brick, plaster, terracotta, artificial stone, cast and wrought iron, bronze, lead, copper and timber. Inscriptions may be either incised or stand proud of the surface, and may be gilded, painted or filled with metal. The variety and combination of materials found in memorials must be taken into account before starting any repair or conservation work, as each material will respond differently to the agents of decay, and to any remedial action. Relevant expertise must be employed to correctly identify the material or materials from which each memorial is constructed and to make an assessment of its condition. Repair procedures must be carefully tailored to the materials, as inappropriate methods will not only prove ineffective but may also cause lasting damage to the memorial.

All materials decay when exposed to the weather. However, the rate of deterioration will vary according to the susceptibility of each material to the dominant weather characteristics. For example, limestone is more easily eroded by acid rain than a true sandstone, but both may suffer equally disastrous damage from the build-up of soluble salts, some of which are deposited by acid rain, behind the surfaces of the stone. All materials are affected by a combination of deterioration factors, so their correct analysis is essential to the success of any remedial work. Decay factors may include:

• the original design: carvings trap water, joints crack as a result of poor detailing, inadequate rain protection leads to staining;
• the original materials: stone used out of its natural bed cracks, and the juxtaposition of incompatible materials can cause preferential decay;
• the original construction: embedded iron fixings expand as they rust, pushing masonry blocks apart, or inadequately bedded railings start to tilt;
• previous repairs of poor quality: unsuitable mortar accelerates decay around joints.

Maintenance is essential to the long-term well being of memorials, yet inappropriate maintenance may be as damaging as no maintenance at all. The excessive build-up of soiling and biocolonisation, the establishment of invasive plants and blocked drainage are just a few of the ways in which lack of maintenance promotes decay. However, most lichens, mosses and some small ferns and wildflowers can be left on monuments and walls provided they are not so lush that they are causing structural damage or obscuring carved details. Woody species such as Buddleia should usually be removed. Examples of inappropriate repair and maintenance include inexpertly applied or inappropriate cleaning chemicals, application of unsuitable paints and surface treatments, and poorly executed mortar repointing.

Theft and vandalism must be added to the list of potential sources of deterioration. Surfaces are defaced by graffiti or by abrasion, and components are broken off. Metal roofing materials are attractive to thieves, and entire monuments may be stolen for resale as 'architectural salvage'.

Identification, documentation and management

The first step in preparing the Conservation Management Plan creation is to create an accurate inventory. Although it may not be possible to equal the archaeological exhaustiveness of a model such as that presented in Harold Mytum's Recording and Analysing Graveyards (2001), a preliminary survey is likely to reveal much of interest, and should not only record what is there but should also describe its condition. It should include both written and photographic evidence. Although some specialist input may be needed for the initial analysis of geology and for surveying the more complex structures, the bulk of the recording can be done by volunteers.

First principles of repair

It should be the aim of the repair and maintenance processes in general to slow down any mechanisms of decay, remove the causes and effects of structural instability and provide security whilst preserving as far as is possible the historic integrity of the memorial. Such an approach is consistent with the principles of conservation rather than restoration (Brereton 1995). It is rarely acceptable, for example, to replace missing ornamental detail, particularly if the design of the replacement is conjectural. Exceptions to this rule must be judged on a case-by-case basis.

Health and safety

Safety concerns in cemeteries have begun to focus on the structural integrity of headstones and other memorial features, after some well-publicised accidents and fatalities involving children. Poorly secured or physically damaged memorials can pose a hazard for cemetery workers and visitors. In this context, the Confederation of Burial Authorities and the Institute of Burial and Cremation Administration (IBCA) have published, in consultation with the Health and Safety Executive, national guidance on the management of memorials (IBCA, 2000; see www.ibca.co.uk/docs). This document includes advice on setting policies towards cemetery staff training; quinquennial safety surveys, testing and recording; risk assessment; remedial actions and site signage.

Whilst the temporary dismantling or laying flat of high-risk headstones is a reasonable response to safety concerns, such actions would not be acceptable as permanent solutions for cemeteries and monuments of architectural or historic interest. Indeed, such actions would usually require the benefit of Listed Building Consent, which would not be given lightly - especially when there are viable alternative, cost-effective strategies available.

A better option is to isolate and cordon-off potentially dangerous features. Temporary propping, first aid treatment and structural repairs can all then follow, to restore employee and public safety and the special interest and integrity of the monument concerned.

Levels of expertise

Some tasks involved in the maintenance of cemetery memorials are definitely the province of professional experts. Architects and surveyors will be needed where buildings are involved or where memorials take the form of large structures. They can also advise upon whether the services of an engineer may be required in cases of serious structural instability. Specialist conservators may have to be employed to evaluate and analyse material condition, treat decay, and clean and stabilise the surfaces of tombs and monuments. Masons, builders and metalworkers will be needed to carry out first aid repair of broken headstones, provide temporary support to dislodged elements, repoint failed joints and rebuild materially sound table tombs. However, volunteers can be asked to tackle the bulk of the cyclical work, including the production and regular updating of the condition assessment reports in the inventory, grass cutting, removal or control of vegetation, and basic cleaning following worked examples and after appropriate training.

Historic landscape restoration in the Conservation Management Plan

Management programmes need to sustain the character of the historic design. The significance of the historic landscape design of cemeteries is often overlooked and designs are disrupted by unfortunate developments such as the location of new burial plots in carriage drives and paths or the introduction of new landscaping. Changes are sometimes inevitable but a good understanding of the cemetery layout and the aims of the design will help guide decisions towards the placing of harmonious or inconspicuous new memorials alongside old ones and the avoidance of placing new burials in key avenues and paths. Planting should be in keeping with the historic design including the siting of trees and shrubs, and chosen species and forms, and features like paths, hedges and borders. In programming cemetery maintenance tasks, thought needs to be given how to enhance the historic design and integrate nature conservation interests, like the natural propagation of primroses and violets, and environmentally sensitive management. Guidance on Conservation Management Plans for historically important designed landscapes will be published by English Heritage. The Garden History Society (www.gardenhistorysociety.org.uk) and county gardens trusts (www.gardenstrusts.co.uk) may also be able to advise on the historic interest of cemetery designs.

Ecology and wildlife in the Conservation Management Plan

The principal wildlife habitats found in cemeteries are woodland and species-rich grassland, although many also support thickets, scrub, heath, veteran trees and wetlands. There will also be the built structures, which can provide habitat for lichens and basking places for insects and reptiles. Without management of any kind the vegetation will almost always develop into secondary woodland, as has happened at many cemeteries. Management aims to 'arrest' this succession. Given the other interests within cemeteries, management for wildlife should link to local conservation priorities like the BAP and aim, wherever possible, to diversify the range of habitats - for example, some grassland, some woodland. Creating new habitats such as ponds may not be appropriate, and may add to resources required in future years.

Managing for wildlife is generally less intensive, and can be quite resource-efficient. It can also complement the historic designed landscape and add a romantic quality. Vegetation need not be cut so regularly, nor is they any need to cut to formal lines in some parts of the cemetery, although it is good practice to demarcate areas managed for wildlife so as to show that apparent 'neglect' is intentional and managed.

There are some management principles which English Nature encourages. All vegetation management should ideally take place outside the bird-breeding season (February to July). Most woodland and shrub management should be carried out between October and February. Selective felling of trees within woodland stands helps to increase their age diversity. On south-facing areas it is often beneficial to create a graded edge between wooded and open areas, to maximise structural diversity. Where there are no health and safety consequences, some dead trees could be left standing to encourage invertebrates that depend on this habitat. Some of those felled might be left to rot in situ. Grassland management can be undertaken to benefit wildflowers and insects by cutting either once (June) or twice (June, October) a year, and ensuring that the cuttings are removed. Composting of cuttings should be encouraged rather than burning, but if there is the only available option, then one specific burn site should be identified.

Problem species or those that become invasive may need to controlled or eradicated to benefit biodiversity, preserve the historic importance or improve the appearance of a cemetery. Some exotic species, such as giant hogweed and Japanese knotweed, require specific management techniques, whereas stinging nettle and bramble usually only need regular cutting back. The use of herbicides, pesticides and other chemicals should be resisted wherever possible. In some cases, e.g. for the control of rhododendron and Japanese knotweed, they may be no alternative option, but expert guidance should be sought before action is taken.

It is good practice to divide the cemetery into wildlife management compartments and to rotate management over a number of years, permitting costs and workload to be spread while the site is gently and incrementally restored. Different habitats require different styles of management: grasslands, for example, require regular attention in order to maintain their value and should be prioritised for resources, whereas woodlands can be left untouched for years without undue adverse effects.

Creation of new habitats may appear an easy way of increasing wildlife diversity, and the introduction of wildflowers like bluebells and wild garlic adds colour to the landscape. However, any such interventions should be undertaken with care. Selective tree and shrub planting may be desirable, as most cemetery woodlands are 'recent' and species-poor (and appropriate new planting could restore the historic landscape design); but since those species that are present are those that have best adapted to the management to date, introducing new ones may not be successful. Increasing species diversity of grasslands by sowing seeds is more difficult, and generally requires removing the topsoil to reduce competition from existing species. All plantings and seeds should be obtained from reputable, and ideally locally provenant sources. Scions could be made from historically important trees and shrubs to grow identical replacements. Planting should be in keeping with other historic interests such as the landscape design, and, most importantly, planting in habitats known to be of existing nature conservation interest, such as relict species-rich grasslands, should be avoided.

Additional features may be added to specifically encourage some species, such as bat- and bird-boxes, sensitively-sited dead wood piles for invertebrates and fungi, and discrete areas of bare soil in sunny areas for bees and solitary wasps.

Managing for wildlife is often a good way of involving local communities in the upkeep of their cemetery, although this should not be seen as 'the cheap option'. A level of skill and training is required, but this can often be obtained via the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers (BTCV www.btcv.org) and the Wildlife Trusts (www.wildlifetrusts.org.uk)who run specific training courses, or who can be brought in to 'kick-start'.