Dorset Group graveyard care day - East Compton

Saturday 31 January, 11am - 3pm

Join the Dorset SPAB Group working outside cutting back overgrown vegetation – shrubs, ivy, brambles – on this SPAB-owned site in rural Dorset. This is a social day while also doing some much needed vegetation management on this pretty site.

All that survives of St Mary's church is its 15th century Grade I-listed tower. This stands within a small, picturesque churchyard, which also contains listed tombs and boundary walls. The whole is a scheduled monument. In the 1980s, SPAB took on ownership and management of the site where, for a time, it became the focus of the Society's annual working parties. SPAB continues to manage the site, ensuring that it retains a rural quality that would have been appreciated by Dorset member Thomas Hardy.

You will need

Bring suitable clothes for the weather on the day and a picnic lunch, hot drinks etc. Also work gloves, secateurs, loppers, hedge shears, kneelers, etc if you have them. Please wear sturdy footwear.

How to get there

The address is ‘The Old Church, East Compton, Compton Abbas’. This is a grassy disused graveyard surrounded by a wall with the tower of the old church still standing. It is NOT the Victorian church on the A350 at Compton Abbas itself.
East Compton is a hamlet under the Downs to the east of the main Blandford to Shaftesbury road (A350) down a narrow lane which runs in a loop. The site lies at the far end of the loop. Be extremely careful turning off the main road. The southern turning is on a sharp bend. Parking is in the adjacent farmyard at Gourds Farm courtesy of Denise and Stephen Parsons. 

NGR: ST875188
What 3 words: thin.slept.washroom
Postcode: SP7 0ND

Accessibility

This is a working day with limited shelter and facilities.

Significant periods of standing, walking and kneeling will be needed for the work - be wary of over exerting.
There are benches but no indoor shelter.
There are uneven surfaces, slip and trip hazards and so on.
We have been access to a toilet in a private home but this is not accessible.
Parking will be limited and not accessible.
There is no reliable mobile phone reception

Anything we can do to make this event more accessible for you? Please email membership@spab.org.uk.

Photos and filming: We may take photos or videos at this event to be used in future promotion, including in print and online. Participants may take photos and short videos for personal use, with permission of the course leader and all other participants in frame. If you want to post on social media, please message SPAB's Comms Team (press@spab.org.uk or @spab1877) for permission. If your material is good, we might ask to share it with our followers.

All bookings are subject to our Terms and Conditions.

Photo credit: East Compton Working Party © Iain Boyd