Blog posts
1st November, 2024
The Friends of Heene Cemetery are proud to announce the launch of their new website!
The previous (WordPress) version that launched in the autumn of 2020 was the group's first website, paid for by a grant from the Heritage Lottery...
10th May, 2024
The documenting of the natural world of Worthing’s Heene Cemetery continues to reveal some glorious detail. To celebrate that, we've had a second round of A6 greetings cards made, which we are again selling to cover the ongoing costs of the...
3rd April, 2024
In the south-east corner of Heene Cemetery is the grave of John Tillyard (1842–1922), a solicitor who was born in Norwich and subsequently lived in Worthing's Rowlands Road. The inscription reads, "In loving memory of John Joseph Tillyard died...
2nd April, 2024
If you have read “Fever! The Year Worthing Died” edited by Colin Reid, you will know that the town was ravaged by typhoid fever in 1893. There are ten Typhoid victims in Heene Cemetery, buried between May and October, with some buried on the...
1st April, 2024
The men and women buried in Heene Cemetery had jobs in a wide range of sectors. Although there were more female burials than male burials only 352 of the 1170 women (30%) had jobs compared to 657 of the 792 men (83%). This was not surprising...
9th January, 2024
Lichen is everywhere in Heene Cemetery. One sees it on graves, headstones, trees and walls, yet until the autumn of 2023 we had little idea of which lichens we were looking at. They were, with a few exceptions, small and perhaps rather boring...
22nd December, 2023
On the grave of the Tilley family, Alfred and Mary Adelaide, (Area NES, Row 3, Plot 9) there are a couple of patches of a yellow lichen called Caloplaca flavescens. They could also be Caloplaca aurantia; the species are often confused, and DNA...
14th November, 2023
The East India Company was not the first merchant trading company, but it would become the world’s first joint-stock venture corporation, eclipsing even that of the largest state-run empires of Spain and Portugal.
A 1496 treaty...
14th November, 2023
We have NOT seen any Asian hornets (Vespa velutina) in Heene Cemetery (nor European hornets for that matter), but we should be prepared for seeing some sooner or later.
We are used to seeing hornets in Britain, but they have...
11th September, 2023
What actually lives in Heene Cemetery – species?
The Heene Cemetery conservation team is proud of its list of wildlife species, a list that grows in length each year, but what exactly is a species? There is currently an unprecedented...
10th September, 2023
The rose family, Rosaceae, includes many different species, of which many are important sources of food for humans, animals and insects. These include the hawthorn and amelanchier trees, especially loved by birds for their berries, as well as...
9th September, 2023
We do our best in Heene Cemetery to be informative about the work of the dedicated team of local volunteers towards its restoration to preserve its unique position as a reservoir of urban wildlife. It is therefore unfortunate that our efforts...
9th September, 2023
Partnership and colonial habitats in the cemetery
In addition to the abundant plant habitats Heene Cemetery has graves of a variety of materials and designs that serve admirably as suitable places for wildlife to colonise. A single...
9th September, 2023
The basic structure of a flint wall
The boundary wall of Heene Cemetery is built substantially of local flint. Flint walls along the coastal strip of West Sussex are generally of three types, using cobbled, knapped, or square-knapped...
4th September, 2023
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 August, 2023
Heene Cemetery may be small at just one acre, yet this town centre Local Wildlife Site is rich in species. Some of these – perhaps surprisingly – are notable, rare, threatened or endangered, appearing on various key...
23rd August, 2023
Bees, wasps and ants belong (with sawflies) to the Hymenoptera order as they are all related in some way. The earliest known individual of this huge group, a stinging wasp, appeared perhaps 190 million years ago. The first ant was a wasp that...
23rd August, 2023
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...
30th July, 2023
This piece of work about the Crimean War was undertaken by one of our volunteer family researchers, Matt Bury, who is greatly interested in military history. We are very grateful to him for the effort and time taken to produce a...
30th July, 2023
What is ‘an invasive species’? We use the term frequently but often flexibly. This post aims to clarify this.
Definitions of the term ‘invasive species’ use a variety of wording, yet all share the same three characteristics. These are...
20th May, 2023
May 20th is World Bee Day, a UN-designated effort in support of sustainable development. The event is spearheaded by The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
The World Bee Day logo
Various...
19th May, 2023
Visitors to Heene Cemetery may be intrigued by two lines of text on the large noticeboard just inside the cemetery gates. They are: “This Cemetery has been formally designated a Site of Nature Conservation Importance (SNCI)”. This post...
8th March, 2023
International Women’s Day #EmbraceEquity falls on Wednesday 8th March 2023 this year.
Historically, women were victims of a class system that permitted them limited rights and entitlements.
This subjected most of them to a...
23rd February, 2023
The documenting of the natural world of Worthing’s Heene Cemetery has revealed some glorious detail. To celebrate that, we have had some A6 greetings cards made, which we are selling to cover the ongoing costs of the work of the Friends of...
19th February, 2023
Newsflash (17th May, 2023): Worthing Council has re-opened Heene Cemetery to the Friends group and to visitors. They have laid flat 17 memorials, each within the boundary of its existing grave plot, thereby removing the risk that they could...