St Andrew’s Laverstock Celebrates Double Awards!

It is not just local residents who find a warm welcome when they visit St Andrew’s, Laverstock. The church is celebrating receiving both its Eco Church Silver Award from A Rocha UK and its Animal Friendly Church award from the Anglican Society for the Welfare of Animals recognising the work it has done for the environment and to be a welcoming space to non-human visitors. Set in a beautiful churchyard leading down to the River Bourne the churchyard is visited by many wild animals, and companion animals are a frequent visitor to services. If you visit the church you will find bat boxes and bird boxes, bug hotels, a hedgehog house and a drinking bowl for visiting dogs.

Hannah Baker, a member of the church’s EcoChurch group says that the projects the group have undertaken have been an expression of church member’s faith in a creator God. “The Bible tells us that God looked at all he had created and saw that it was good, and we believe that part of our calling as Christians is to care for that creation which is facing unprecedent challenges due to the way we have chosen to live. Our projects have taken practical steps to help local species that are under threat such as bats, hedgehogs and insects and also to ensure that we recognise how important companion animals are to people by making them welcome in our services. We hope that we have enabled church members and the wider village community to think about what they can do to make a difference in the fight against the loss of biodiversity”.

The awards recognise a wide range of projects which have included making changes to the way the church manages its grounds, holding Breakfast@9 services in the churchyard throughout the summer and even twinning the church’s toilet with one in the developing world. The church’s environmental work has drawn in many members of the wider village community. Church members have created a Facebook Group and Website ‘Wild About Laverstock’ where the whole community can share photos of local wildlife and ideas about how to care for it. The Church brought its own automatic trail camera and captured footage of hedgehogs, foxes, cats, rats, wood pigeons, robins and other visitors to the churchyard to start off the conversation and the village soon joined in! The group now has over 100 members and have held two face-to-face events in the church focusing on local endangered species, the first on bats, the second hedgehogs. Local cub scouts spent an evening building bug hotels and planting bat friendly plants and the church is planning a wildlife event for children in the local community in March.