An important part of the mission for the volunteers who care for St Peter’s Church, the Parochial Church Council (PCC) is to ensure our church can support our village in times of celebration, but also at more difficult times.

Therefore we are reaching out to our neighbours to broach a difficult, but important matter to enable us all to plan for the future and ensure we can support families who are affected by bereavement and may wish loved ones to rest in our churchyard.

For some time, we have been considering options as our churchyard nears capacity for burials, which will mean in the near future we will sadly be unable to lay loved ones to rest in a burial plot. We will continue to be able to inter ashes in our churchyard, but unfortunately, as many churches are experiencing, currently with only four new burial plots remaining, the capacity of our churchyard will soon be reached for burials.

This is a situation which many churches are facing and in other parishes where space for burials is not available locally, families are forced to consider alternative locations provided by the local council. In our village, if further space could not be found in our churchyard we would be referred to burial space within Hinckley & Bosworth Borough Council’s cemetery at Ashby Road.

With this in mind we felt it is important to ensure awareness and enable families to consider the choices they might make if facing bereavement.

One option the PCC has been considering for some time is the possibility of creating a new churchyard and memorial garden in the former Glebe Land on Church Road opposite the Blue Lion. This land was purchased by many years ago to be used as a churchyard extension. Over the years the PCC has explored options to develop the site as it was intended, however it has become clear that creating a new churchyard will be a big project, requiring volunteers and substantial funds.

So, we also wish to canvass opinions from the village to gauge support, interest and any practical offers of help to determine the viability of creating new churchyard space for our village.

We would welcome your feedback and have created a survey which we would invite you to complete to express your opinion, interest and any offers of support. We hope that all neighbours in Witherley and Atterton will receive a have hand delivered letter and printed survey by the end of May.  We invite you to complete the form and return it either to the Church, a member of the PCC or Kate Salmon’s postbox (Lavender Cottage, 15 Post Office Lane) by 30 June 2024. 

For ease we also welcome you to complete the survey online here:

https://forms.office.com/e/bY0yUGBtZn

If it appears there is interest and financial support from the village which makes the creation of a new churchyard and memorial space viable we would propose to host a consultation meeting but first we would welcome your feedback.

Thank you for considering this difficult subject, and for the generous support so many give to St Peter’s Church. Whether you join us at services, at village events, give generously or simply stroll through our churchyard, we are grateful for the support Witherley and Atterton villagers kindly give to St Peters Church.

Wishing our neighbours many blessings from all at Witherley PCC.

Rev Emily Sharman, Liz Betts (Churchwarden), Kate Salmon, Kate Chorley, Gaynor Smith, Rachel Mosedale (Secretary) and Tracy Mosedale (Treasurer)