7 November 2022

St Andrew’s Church, Heddon and Heddon Parish Council are working together to address the future of burials in Heddon on the Wall once the current churchyard is full.
The churchyard of our ancient Church (consecrated in 630AD) is landlocked on all sides within a relatively small footprint, therefore once the last few plots are allocated there are no options to continue to use this churchyard for new burials. Please be assured that those plots which have a faculty or that are double depth graves will still be able to be used as has already been planned and authorised. We will continue to be able to bury ashes in the churchyard with the permission of the incumbent (Vicar) and the parochial fees being paid. There will however be no new burials possible once the last remaining plots have been used and the churchyard is closed.

As a result we are reaching out to all residents in our area to ask for consideration of whether there is land in your control that could be given over to create a Community Cemetery, such that Heddon on the Wall residents can have the possibility to be buried near their current residences. We appreciate this will not be an option for most.

All options are open for consideration, land sale, lease or gift with the main criteria being that the land is of a reasonable size, is accessible, such that funeral directors or those visiting their loved ones can have reasonable access, that the land is fairly flat (although this is the least important criteria) and that the area under consideration can be walled or fenced off with hedgerow.

We do hope that approaching everyone directly causes no offense as we recognise this is a sensitive and emotive area. However, we wanted to be transparent and open with our community and felt that reaching out to all residents directly to see if any other ideas might be forthcoming was the best approach.

It would be greatly appreciated if you could feed back to the Parish Council and would suggest that this can be done by email or by post to the addresses shown below. In addition it is proposed to hold an open meeting for Heddon on the Wall residents to discuss this and what other options may be available on 19th November 2022, at 10am in the Knott Hall.
If you need any support with this sensitive subject in the meantime Revd Rachel would be happy to help.

Thank you in advance

Yours

Revd Rachel Scheffer

St Andrew’s Church, The Vicarage, Stamfordham, NE18 0QQ  Tel. 01661 886853

r.scheffer@newcastle.anglican.org heddonpc@gmail.com

Paul Edwards

Chair, Heddon Parish Council, Heddon on the Wall Library, Heddon on the Wall

heddonpc@gmail.com