Community Biodiversity Day at Crossbones

On Monday 25th July 2022, we were lucky to be joined at Crossbones by Jon Best, Southwark Council’s ecology officer. Together with community volunteers, we took part in a series of activities designed to celebrate and document the biodiversity of Crossbones Graveyard.

Guided by Jon, we recorded a number of plants, pond invertebrates and insects found at Crossbones on that day. Our community volunteers creatively documented our finds, which you can view in the pamphlet below. You can also download a copy here – please feel free to reproduce it as you wish.

Background

Like many other sites in London, Crossbones was once awaiting redevelopment. Although the site was strewn with industrial debris at the time, local plants and wildlife began to make a home at Crossbones. The ecological opportunities provided by those early pioneer species have since been nurtured and grown by grassroots, invisible and community gardeners.

Very often, this nurturing has been an act of stepping back and surrendering to the potency of the wild, rather than active management. Now, decisions about the direction of the garden are taken with diversity front and centre: there are no weeds at Crossbones, but every plant deserves its place. Plants are cut back or removed only if they are taking up space from another. At Crossbones, no plant, or any other living species, is innately good nor bad: the context is what is important.