Blog posts
22nd January, 2026
Of the 793 species identified, photographed and described* in Heene, the majority by Rob Tomlinson, 39 are birds. Some of the species are migratory and are only found in Heene Cemetery in summer, for example the Pied...
17th January, 2026
George Teesdale, 1871 -1960, coachman, groom and coach painter was, according to records, the last man in Worthing to drive a coach with horses in the town. A sight that would have been commonplace just a few decades before. Argentine...
12th January, 2026
Rob’s death in December 2025 has left an enormous gap in FoHC. It’s impossible to imagine any single individual having the skills and commitment to step into Rob’s place. His passion for environmentalism was prodigious.
His...
3rd January, 2026
Heene cemetery records show tea traders, tea brokers and tea merchants, plantation growers and managers, clerks to tea traders and commercial travellers who dealt in tea. There are grocers who became involved with selling...
10th December, 2025
Women's Land Army and Heene
The Land Army was formed to keep farms staffed while the male farm hands were fighting in the great war. In the summer of 1939, with war looming once again, agricultural training was offered to women....
24th November, 2025
Beer wasn’t always made with hops. In Anglo-Saxon England, ale, called a malt brew, used bittering herbs like bog myrtle, nettles, and sage. Beer using hops was introduced from Germany and Flanders in the late fifteenth century...
10th November, 2025
There are a good many market gardeners, growers and agriculture workers buried at Heene, some of whom played an important role in the successful Worthing horticultural industry. From the vineries and cucumbers grown under glass in the care...
28th October, 2025
Mycorrhiza: Symbiotic Foundations of Plant–Fungal Interactions
In preparation for replanting the roses in Heene's Memorial Garden, volunteer Philippa, used mycorrhiza compost to nourish the soil. Mycorrhiza play an...
27th October, 2025
Worthing and Adur Council’s Public Space Protection Order (PSPO) will change in December 2025 from PSPO (on Leads) to PSPO (No Dogs). This blog post gives the relevant background information to this.
On Saturday 3rd August 2024 a...
20th October, 2025
The project to create a new Memorial Garden began months ago. Discussions and suggestions came and went. Though the old roses, planted some ten years before, were once wonderful they had declined such that two did not flower...
17th October, 2025
FoHC are proud to announce that we have completed the Memorial Garden at the entrance to the cemetery.
The garden has been introduced as a place of solace and to honour the dead with unknown graves. It has been a long time in...
9th October, 2025
Nestled behind Victorian brick and flint walls in West Worthing, Heene Cemetery is the final resting place for nearly 2,000 souls. Among them
lie eight men whose lives were cut short by the First World War, their graves now cared for by...
15th September, 2025
Friends of Heene Cemetery have a dedicated family tree on the 'Ancestry' family history site.
It is called 'Heenecemetery.org.uk' and contains a information on all 1960 burials together with family information.
Nearly...
13th September, 2025
How do we honour the dead who are buried in the Cemetery? Should our management of the Cemetery remain constant through time? What notice do we pay to Heene Cemetery being an official Local Wildlife Site? Is our thinking sufficiently in tune...
30th August, 2025
You may barely notice it happening, your ears and eyes registering nothing of their presence alongside you as you walk around the cemetery. Then as spring moves into summer, you will one day hear or see your first bush-cricket or grasshopper...
26th August, 2025
In 1896 the remains of Clump Square in Heene Road were
razed to the ground. In its place was to be built the new Heene
Parish Rooms and a Police Station.
The description of Clump Square in many of the...
22nd August, 2025
The term species surveying sounds dry and dusty, conjuring up clipboards and lists. Imagine butterfly nets being swept through long grasses by Victorians wearing tweeds, plus fours and bush hats. Those were the days! More likely it consists of...
9th August, 2025
All 1960 burials in Heene Cemetery have now been identified, some presented more of a puzzle than others. For instance, it was difficult to locate Anna Bowen's family as we knew so little about her from the burial register.
We...
7th August, 2025
Several soldiers buried at Heene were trained at Sandhurst Military Academy in Berkshire. This is not surprising as over 70 soldiers are buried in the cemetery and most of them were officers. However, it is surprising is that two of the...
7th August, 2025
There can be no better example of species variation than the hoverflies that live alongside us here in Britain. Perhaps they move too quickly or are too small for us to notice the detail, but their variety deserves close attention. Some have...
6th August, 2025
The heritage group, of Friends of Heene Cemetery, have celebrated researching and writing about all the 1960 souls interred in the graveyard. We met for a breakfast at Marine Gardens Café to mark this event. Sue Standing,...
6th August, 2025
We continue to be startled at the diversity that our species surveys are uncovering. Who knew that Heene Cemetery’s small, one-acre, town-centre site would be so species-rich? We have already detailed this in a series of blog posts about the...
31st July, 2025
Observing and recording Heene Cemetery’s biodiversity over the last half-decade has illustrated nature’s complexity. At every turn, the detail is fascinating, no less so than in the case of grass and grasses. Unlike the turf found in most...
7th July, 2025
The Monterey cypress which span the eastern side of the cemetery started out as Cupressus macrocarpa which roughly translates as cypress tree with large fruit.
DNA advances now place the tree in a different genus, ...
3rd July, 2025
Heene Cemetery in West Worthing is also a West Sussex Local Wildlife Site. Its 1992 designation as a Site of Nature Conservation Importance was conferred on this one acre site of neutral grassland and scrub in recognition of it containing “...