Blog posts
17th April, 2025
Pause for a moment to consider the insect equivalent of washing hands. It’s as time-consuming an affair for them as we humans find it to be, not least because they have six legs to deal with – and there’s no supply of water on tap. Yet it’s...
14th April, 2025
In 1998 a Swiss ecologist discovered that corn plants being chewed by caterpillars could sample the insect’s saliva and release into the air around them a finely-tuned chemical gas. Within an hour, a parasitic wasp would arrive and inject eggs...
11th April, 2025
There are several lessons that we can learn from the species surveying in the Local Wildlife Site in Heene Cemetery’s one acre. The first is the remarkable variety of plants and creatures that can be found there (currently 711*). The second is...
5th April, 2025
Botanic Gardens Conservation International published a landmark State of the World’s Trees report in 2021, the culmination of five years of research. Of the world’s 60,000 tree species, they found that 17,500 tree species are at risk of...
4th April, 2025
Flowering plants (angiosperms) are classified as monocotyledons (monocots) or dicotyledons (eudicots). Cotyledons are the food storage organ of the seed and contain the embryonic leaf. Monocots have one cotyledon and one embryonic leaf...
4th April, 2025
Flowering plants, integral components of ecosystems worldwide, are broadly categorised into monocotyledonous (monocots) and dicotyledonous (eudicots) groups based on fundamental developmental differences, particularly the number of seed leaves...
1st April, 2025
St Michael's graveyard was probably originally of vegetation type; chalk grassland. Chalk grasslands, also known as chalk downlands, are a distinctive and ecologically significant habitat found primarily across southern England and also in...
29th March, 2025
Visitors to Heene Cemetery may be intrigued by three lines of text on the large noticeboard just inside the cemetery gates. Before the old welcome sign was replaced in March 2025, they read: “This Cemetery has been formally designated a Site...
16th February, 2025
Curates and assistant vicars played an important role in assisting the rectors of Heene. For the curates it was often their first role after ordination and it was essentially a training role where they learnt from the rector all his duties and...
9th February, 2025
John Tillyard and Lillian Chamberlain both suffered from rheumatism. They are now buried in the graveyard that contains plants that could have been used to ease their symptoms.
Bittersweet (woody nightshade), ...
13th January, 2025
Friends of Heene Cemetery have recorded 850 headstone inscriptions in the cemetery. 986 of the burials have inscriptions that start with the message: ‘In loving memory’ and many contain religious or spiritual phrases such as ‘...
16th December, 2024
To publicise the work of the group and help showcase some of Heene Cemetery's special character, we have produced a set of A3 colour posters for use in the noticeboard outside the Cemetery's gates. With luck (and sufficient funding) this...
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...