Volunteers needed to help clear overgrown vegetation at cemetery in Brora on Sunday
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Clyne Heritage Society is appealing for volunteers to help with a clean-up at Clynekirkton cemetery, Brora, on Sunday.
The society normally holds annual clear-up sessions but has been prevented from doing so over the last two to three years because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Anyone interested is invited to meet at the graveyard - weather permitting - on Sunday, October 2, at 11am. The session is expected to last until 12.30pm.
Those taking part are asked to bring their own gloves and garden tools as well as a hot drink to have with other volunteers at the end of the event.
Work will involve clearing overgrown vegetation, picking up fallen branches and twigs and removing dangerous tree boughs.
Highland Council owns the cemetery but its operations there are confined to grass cutting.
The society has been acting as “Friends of the Graveyard” since 2002, when volunteers undertook a vegetation clearance exercise over six successive weekends.
Society chairman Dr Nick Lindsay said: “Decades of unchecked growth of ivy had completely enveloped great swathes of the site, making parts of it inaccessible for anyone visiting the area seeking headstones of long-buried ancestors.
“Following the 2002 effort, the graveyard has needed only minimum maintenance in the spring of each year since.
“Visitors can now roam unhindered through the tranquil graveyard looking for their family lairs. In the early spring, carpets of snowdrops and primulas cover the graveyard, to add to the beauty of the place.
“For those with a long memory, the most spectacular discovery made during the clearance was a 1779 grave marker to John MacKay, from a later cleared township of Dalvait in Strath Brora, inscribed in French. The reasons for this still remain a mystery, but it is thought to be unique in the Highlands.”
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