A Kenton Community Conservation Project

Harmony Meadow has been managed as a conservation area since the early 1990’s when Jane Turner, a local resident, had a vision for an extension to the Kenton Cemetery, which would be maintained for the benefit of the local community as a quiet, wild, and natural area.

Jane and local volunteers nurtured the site for ten years. Jane had strong beliefs in natural ecology and wanted the site to thrive as a wildlife haven using traditional methods and without application of chemical fertilisers, herbicides or insecticides. This is how the name “Harmony Meadow” originated.

Jane died in 2000 and the project lay dormant for a while but the undergrowth and brambles thrived! A management committee was set up in 2000 and a ten year plan was put in place, with a five year review to allow the Parish Council flexibility to respond to changing demands for its use as a cemetery.

The site is currently maintained with a range of habitats, principally hay and wild flower meadow, areas of scrub, thick hedges and trees many of which were planted by children from Kenton Primary School. The hedges on the east and west boundaries have been laid in the traditional fashion with help from the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers.

A local company “Birdscape” put up bat, tit and dormouse boxes in 2002 to encourage more wildlife into the area. Surveys have identified a varied range of grass, flowering plant and tree species in the meadow, recently including the first specimens of Common Spotted orchid and Southern Marsh Orchid. The area is also used as a feeding point for around twenty bird species. No detailed survey of invertebrates has been undertaken, although the lack of chemical use has ensured that the meadow on occasion hums with bees, beetles, butterflies and other insects that confirm this to one of the most important sites in the parish for biodiversity.